BT  15  .F7  v . 6 
Foster,  Randolph  S.  1820- 
1903  . 

Studies  in  theology 


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UNION  OF  EPISCOPAL  METHODISM . 75 


Studies  in  Theology— VI 


BY 

^  ' 

RANDOLPH  S.  FOSTER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

A  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 


iipos  to  <t>nz 


NEW  YORK:  EATON  &  MAINS 
CINCINNATI  :  CURTS  &  JENNINGS 
1899 


Copyright  by 
EATON  &  MAINS, 

J899. 


PREFACE. 


A  prime  object  of  the  discussions  conducted  in  this  series  of 
volumes,  of  which  this  is  the  sixth,  is  to  furnish  the  reader,  in 
a  condensed  form,  the  best  thought  of  the  most  learned  and 
able  thinkers  in  the  departments  of  philosophy  and  theology, 
and  the  results  of  personal  investigation  carried  forward  for 
half  a  century  with  honest  effort  to  reach  the  truth  and  relieve 
points  of  obscurity  and  difficulty  to  the  ordinary  reader  and 
even  to  the  most  careful  student 

"We  do  not  entertain  the  idea  that  all  difficulties  have  been 
relieved  or  obscurities  made  plain,  but  it  is  our  hope  that  on 
most  points  substantial  help  is  rendered,  while  no  subject  has 
been  omitted  or  treated  either  with  unchristian  or  unscientific 
carelessness.  Some  views  will  be  found  not  in  harmony  with 
popular  thought  or  common  teaching,  the  study  of  which  may 
render  help  where  it  is  greatly  needed. 

Of  one  thing  we  are  entirely  certain,  that  we  have  aimed 
simply  to  correct  some  glaring  errors  and  to  aid  in  the  right 
understanding  of  obscure  truth,  and  to  lead  other  minds  to 
continued  effort  in  the  right  direction. 

It  is  not  in  our  thought  to  free  the  reader  from  the  duty  of 
personal  effort,  or  to  do  his  thinking  for  him,  but  rather  to  en¬ 
courage  and  help  him  in  his  work. 


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■ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Adam .  3 

Inclusions  of  the  Creative  Act .  14 

What  is  Sin  ? .  24 

Guilt . 117 

Punishment .  119 


SIN. 


fit 


SIN. 


ADAM. 

There  is  no  subject  upon  which  theologians  have  drawn 
more  largely,  not  to  say  exclusively,  on  the  imagination  than 
that  of  the  original  state  of  man.  The  wild  dream  of  Milton 
has  not  simply  furnished  almost  the  entire  staple  of  the  popular 
superstition,  but  also  the  substance  of  the  grave  teachings  of 
the  most  eminent  theologians.  They  have  put  forward  the 
merest  fables  with  assurance  as  well-established  verities.  A 
hint,  or  mere  suspicion,  has  dominated  a  doctrine.  Disregard¬ 
ful  of  all  known  or  even  probable  facts,  they  have  enforced  a 
theory  woven  by  fancy.  Painters  have  exhausted  their  art  in 
painting  paradisaical  landscapes  of  the  rarest  beauty  and  richest 
luxuriance— lawns,  groves,  vistas,  long-drawn  avenues,  lakelets, 
meandering  streams,  arranged  in  the  most  artistic  perspective, 
flowers,  tinted  atmospheres  suggestive  of  fragrance,  all  blending 
in  the  picture- — and  it  has  been  insisted  that  the  reality  far  tran¬ 
scends  the  power  of  description.  The  happy  pair  have  been  rep¬ 
resented  as  gliding  about  amid  these  bowers  of  beauty,  them¬ 
selves  the  most  beautiful  objects  of  all,  having  a  perfect  ecstasy 
of  life,  without  care  or  trouble.  And  this  dream  has  been  prop¬ 
agated  as  if  there  were  some  real  foundation  for  it.  It  is  as 
pure  a  fiction  as  was  ever  invented.  There  is  not  a  sentence  in 
the  Bible  to  warrant  it.  It  is  false  to  all  reality  as  seen  in  the 
light  of  natural  laws  and  to  all  historic  tracings  in  the  works 
and  ways  of  Grod.  A  moment’s  reflection  divests  us  of  the  fool¬ 
ish  and  injurious  fancy. 

The  world  where  Adam  was  made  and  where  he  commenced 

6 


4 


Studies  m  Theolog-y. 


his  life  was  this  world  as  we  find  it  to-day,  except  not  beauti¬ 
fied  by  the  touch  of  cultivation.  The  paradise  where  Adam 
lived  was  probably  somewhere  in  Central  Asia,  the  land  where 
Bedouins  pitch  their  tents  to-day,  and  in  essential  respects  un¬ 
changed.  The  proof  of  this  is  found  in  the  unchanged  surface 
of  the  land,  in  the  atmosphere,  in  the  climatic  conditions,  and  in 
the  vegetable  and  animal  life  which  geology  shows  has  pre¬ 
vailed  there  for  ages.  There  were  hailstorms  and  snowdrifts, 
floods  and  earthquakes,  plenty  and  famine,  before  and  after 
our  first  parents  came. 

They  were  made  for  this  world ;  for  work  and  toil  and  care ; 
for  an  everyday  existence,  and  not  for  parade.  The  fiber  of 
their  flesh  was  the  same  as  ours.  They  needed  forethought  as 
we  do ;  had  to  collect  and  cook  their  three-times-a-day  meal  or 
go  hungry.  Why  shall  we  delude  ourselves  with  fancies? 
That  which  the  history  warrants  is  just  this  and  no  more :  A 
man  and  woman,  one  to  be  father  and  one  to  be  mother,  were 
put  upon  their  feet  in  a  place  called  a  garden,  where  the  means 
of  subsistence  were  abundant,  and  were  commanded  to  dress  it, 
and  keep  it,  and  get  their  living  out  of  it.  That  is  the  record ; 
nothing  more.  It  is  a  simple  and  perfectly  natural  story.  It 
was  in  a  region  long  and  abundantly  inhabited  by  living  crea¬ 
tures.  It  was  a  good  central  point  for  a  race  to  be  planted  that 
was  soon  to  spread  over  the  whole  earth.  The  whole  earth,  as 
much  as  that  particular  spot,  was  to  be  their  home.  That  spot 
had  no  special  sunshine,  no  peculiar  enchantment.  It  was 
simply  the  earth,  for  earthly  beings ;  it  was  not  heaven,  or  a 
place  midway.  It  will  be  well  to  begin  the  correction  of  our 
fabulous  fancies  right  here.  So  far  as  we  are  able  to  find  there 
is  not  a  hint  in  revelation  that  Eden  was  more  beautiful  than, 
or  in  any  respect  different  from,  a  thousand  places  found  in  pure 
nature  now,  and  there  is  no  indication  in  geological  phenomena 

to  denote  a  radical  change  of  the  conditions  then  existing.  Man 
6 


Adam. 


5 


was  there,  sin  and  evil  left  out  for  a  brief  interval — perhaps 
not  more  than  a  day,  or  possibly  only  a  few  hours — just  what 
he  is  now ;  had  the  same  wants  and  needs,  and  had  to  be  sup¬ 
plied  in  the  same  way.  Let  us  not  delude  ourselves  or  load 
revelation  with  a  fancy  which  is  groundless  and  to  which  it 
gives  no  support. 

This  being  the  place,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  being? 
Here,  again,  imagination  has  performed  the  same  fantastic 
tricks,  and  with  as  slender  materials.  Sober  common  sense 
brought  to  the  investigation  of  the  history  cannot  fail  to  dissi¬ 
pate  the  glamour  thrown  around  it  by  mere  fancy,  but  it  is  diffi¬ 
cult  to  permit  common  sense  to  have  fair  play  in  competition 
with  sentiments  which,  however  groundless,  cling  to  us,  hal¬ 
lowed  with  a  sort  of  religious  sacredness,  and  which  we  suppose 
come  to  us  from  the  Bible.  But  if  we  would  preserve  those 
ideas  which  are  true  and  worthy  of  respect  the  attempt  at 
defending  and  perpetuating  mere  fables  must  be  abandoned. 

There  is  a  truth  with  respect  to  that  first  man.  What  is  it  ? 
As  to  his  being,  nothing  could  be  more  brief  and  simple  than 
the  Bible  statement.  First,  there  was  a  body  made  out  of  com¬ 
mon  earth ;  second,  there  was  a  soul  infused  or  shrined  in  it. 
These  terms  describe  humanity  as  we  possess  it — that,  and 
nothing  more.  If  we  would  think  justly  of  the  case  we  bring 
ourselves  to  the  simple  idea  of  a  man  like  any  of  us,  fitted  to 
live  such  a  life  as  we  live,  environed  with  our  wants,  under  the 
same  laws  which  apply  to  us  in  every  particular.  He  was  new, 
but  the  world  was  old  and  just  as  we  find  it.  To  make  his 
way  through  it  what  is  necessary  for  us  was  necessary  for  him. 
He  was  as  like  us  substantially,  sin  excepted,  as  our  father 
whom  we  laid  away  yesterday.  He  did  not  become  so  in  time, 
he  began  so.  Hunger  and  want  struck  him  the  first  day  he 
lived  on  earth.  He  needed  clothes  and  home  as  much  as  we  do. 
The  same  law  of  labor  bound  him  that  binds  us. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


Now,  let  ns  come  somewhat  nearer  to  this  great  stranger  who 
has  just  been  made  to  be  the  heir  of  the  world,  and  study  him 
a  little. 

As  it  is  with  every  other  man,  he  stands  before  us  a  physical 
structure — a  body.  We  know  what  it  was  made  of  and  what 
it  was  like,  for  it  was  precisely  like  ours  in  every  essential  par¬ 
ticular.  It  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  it  was  as  perfect  as  a 
body  can  be,  for  we  do  not  forget  that  it  was  not  an  accident. 
God  made  it.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  well 
made.  It  was  a  good  body — healthy,  well-proportioned,  com¬ 
plete,  and  perfect  in  all  its  members.  To  suppose  otherwise 
would  be  to  impeach  its  Maker.  Any  reason  there  was  for 
making  a  body  at  all  was  a  reason  for  making  it  well.  But  it 
was  a  body  of  earth.  This  implies  a  great  deal.  It  was  made 
to  dwell  on  the  earth,  to  encounter  its  variable  and  destructive 
climatic  conditions.  It  was  sensitive  to  the  atmospheric  changes ; 
hunger  would  pinch  it,  a  bruise  would  hurt  it,  an  accidental 
fall  might  kill  it ;  it  was  open  to  attacks  of  disease  from  the 
subtle  poisons  which  freighted  the  air ;  vital  processes  wasted  it. 
It  needed  constant  care.  It  is  so  now,  it  was  so  then. 

We  inherit  less  healthy  bodies ;  diseases  have  been  contracted 
and  have  been  transmitted  to  us.  We  are  degenerate  physi¬ 
cally,  as  a  rule.  But  the  possibility  of  this  was  in  his  constitu¬ 
tion  and  is  incidental  to  an  earthly  body,  as  such,  in  a  world 
such  as  the  earth  is,  and  as  it  has  been  all  along  the  periods  of 
its  existence.  The  common  fortunes  of  humanity  were  his,  its 
imminent  liabilities  and  necessities.  He  would  grow  old,  his 
hair  would  become  gray  and  his  eyes  dim,  and  he  would  need 
a  staff. 

He  was  to  be  a  father  and  have  offspring.  This  means  the 
pain  of  child-bearing  to  Eve  and  the  increase  of  care  to  the 
provident  father.  There  would  have  been  growing  home  wants 

in  Eden,  and  when  the  children  came  of  age  and  wandered  off 

6 


Adam. 


7 


to  new  countries,  as  they  must,  there  would  have  been  tearful 
partings.  Life  in  a  body  means  all  this,  and  more,  of  toil  and 
weariness. 

Now,  what  shall  we  say  of  his  soul  ?  That  the  new  creature 
was  endowed  with  adequate  mental  power  we  think  there  is  no 
just  reason  to  doubt.  The  end  for  which  he  was  called  into 
existence,  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed,  the  great 
responsibility  attaching  to  his  actions,  the  character  of  the  Cre¬ 
ator  and  the  manner  of  all  his  working,  guarantee  this.  The 
perfect  body  was  the  shrine  of  a  mind  of  rich  and  ample  endow¬ 
ments.  But  the  endowments  were  those  of  faculty — mental 
powers.  There  is  a  relation  between  body  and  mind— -the  rela¬ 
tion  of  instrument  and  agent.  The  instrument  was  good,  the 
agent  had  complete  use  of  it.  His  power  was  adequate  and 
unembarrassed.  Before  him  were  the  ages.  He  was  to  grow 
in  stature  and  in  all  the  elements  of  greatness.  His  mind,  equal 
in  endowments  to  the  task,  would  need  to  grow  and  to  have 
time  for  growth. 

If,  now,  it  be  asked,  What  was  the  degree  of  knowledge  with 
which  he  was  endowed  ?  we  should  incline  to  say,  None  what¬ 
ever.  Knowledge  is  acquired,  not  concreated ;  an  attainment, 
not  a  gift.  He  was  able  to  know.  His  perfect  sensorium  was 
a  complex  of  avenues  through  which  knowledge  would  pour  in 
upon  his  perceptive  and  receptive  consciousness.  The  raw 
material  of  sensations  was  immediately  transmuted  into  ideas 
and  cognitions. 

The  imagination  that  he  was  created  with  knowledge,  or  that 
he  knew  things  in  any  other  way  than  we  know  them,  is  with¬ 
out  warrant.  He  had  the  faculty  of  observation,  understand¬ 
ing,  reason,  intuition,  imagination,  memory,  speech,  and  God 
was  near  to  inspire  and  guide  him  as  his  need  required.  So 
gifted,  his  duties,  as  they  arose,  would  become  plain  to  his 
apprehension,  and  nature  as  it  passed  in  detail  under  his  obser- 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


vation  would  become  subject  to  his  use  and  convenience.  He 
had  everything  to  learn,  but  the  ravishing  lesson  would  be 
easily  mastered,  so  far  as  present  need  required,  by  his  vigorous 
and  industrious  faculties.  He  was  here  for  discipline  and  de¬ 
velopment,  and  his  great  lifework  was  to  learn,  interpret,  and 
obey  his  Maker’s  will,  and  possess  and  enjoy  the  wondrous 
stores  of  wealth  and  blessing  spread  about  him.  Each  hour 
and  day  were  to  bring  him  on  his  journey  of  discovery  and  in¬ 
creasing  development ;  to  thrill  him  with  new  attainments,  and 
refine  and  exalt  his  powers  of  love  and  knowledge  by  the  con¬ 
tact  of  fresh  beauties  and  benignities  of  the  earth  and  sky  over¬ 
arching  and  spreading  around  his  home,  and  by  the  direct 
influences  of  the  ever-present  Holy  Spirit.  Thus,  ever  learning 
and  ever  enjoying  what  he  learned,  his  life  was  to  answer  the 
end  for  which  it  was  bestowed. 

Was  he  subject  to  mistakes  and  errors?  We  see  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  he  was.  Accurate  knowledge  is  of  slow  growth. 
There  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  it  is  not  so  with  angels  as 
well  as  with  men.  He  was  not  an  exception.  But,  if  careful 
and  dutiful,  he  would  be  saved  from  fatal  mistakes.  On  moral 
subjects  he  had  an  ever-present  Guide,  whose  voice  he  would 
not  fail  to  hear  whenever  necessary.  But  by  this  we  do  not 
mean  that  he  was  able  to  solve  great  moral  problems,  or  knew 
intuitively  ethical  laws  and  principles.  The  history  shows  that 
in  these  respects  he  was  a  child.  The  code  over  him  consisted 
of  a  single  command.  That  means  something.  He  had  no  knowl¬ 
edge  proper  of  the  world :  had  to  find  out  the  time  to  look  for 
the  sun  and  when  to  expect  its  setting ;  the  moon’s  coming  and 
going ;  the  seasons  to  plant  and  to  harvest ;  the  means  of  protec¬ 
tion  from  rigor  of  weather,  heat  and  cold ;  the  ores  and  metals, 
how  to  make  tools  and  how  to  use  them ;  what  was  good  for 
food,  and  how  to  capture  it  and  prepare  it, — everything.  He 
would  doubtless  make  mistakes ;  not  such  as  greatly  to  mar  his 


Adam. 


9 


happiness  or  sully  his  purity,  but  such  as  to  require  his  atten¬ 
tion  and  study,  put  him  under  the  need  of  exercising  careful 
judgment,  and  lay  him  under  tribute  to  the  healthful  and  vig¬ 
orous  use  of  all  his  faculties.  He  was  at  school,  and  school 
means  mental  training.  God,  we  must  believe,  was  wonderfully 
near  to  this  inexperienced  child  of  his  to  help  him  in  matters  of 
real  need.  It  is  not  given  to  us  to  know  in  what  ways  and 
manners — there  is  an  intimation  of  a  visible  presence  on  occa¬ 
sions.  There  were  lessons  to  be  taught  for  all  time  that  possi¬ 
bly  could  not  otherwise  be  learned  or  communicated.  The 
new-made  Adam  was  simply  a  human  soul  in  a  human  body, 
placed  on  earth  to  begin  a  career  of  eternal  improvement  with 
faculty  sufficient  to  commence  his  journey  and  pursue  it  safely  to 
the  end.  His  knowledge  to  begin  with  was  a  point ;  it  would 
become  an  ever-lengthening  line,  a  rapidly  growing  volume,  a 
library.  Knowledge  would  increase  from  age  to  age ;  would 
become  more  accurate;  would  open  new  fields  of  discovery; 
would  multiply  means  of  welfare.  Paradise  would  improve. 

In  matters  of  duty  he  had,  as  we  have  now,  an  ever-present 
inward  and  infallible  monitor  to  guide  him — a  divine  voice,  we 
may  believe— but  this  implies,  not  completeness  of  knowledge, 
but  continuous  growth. 

Dr.  Raymond  in  his  excellent  work  on  Systematic  Theology ,  a 
work  throughout  distinguished  for  sound  common  sense  and 
clear  thought,  says:*  “It  is  not  necessary  to  indulge  a  poetic 
fancy  or  imagine  a  superhuman  body  of  gigantic  proportions 
and  of  angelic  beauty.  It  is  sufficient  to  conceive  that  man, 
such  as  we  now  find  him,  enjoyed  perfect  health  and  possessed 
sufficient  vigor  and  strength  for  all  his  duties,  such  as  probably 
many  enjoy  at  some  portions  of  their  lives  even  now.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  conceive  that  hunger  and  weariness  were  impossi¬ 
ble,  nor  that  wounds  would  not  produce  pain,  nor  that  poison 
2  *Vol.  ii,  p.  40. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


would  not  produce  disease,  but  that  for  all  such  exigencies  some 
preventive  or  antidote  was  ever  at  band.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
conceive  that  the  body  was  naturally  immortal ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  may  be  readily  admitted  that  dissolution  is  an  organic  law  of 
animal  life,  and  that  therefore  man,  being  an  animal,  was  subject 
to  that  law.  Being  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  there  was  a  nat¬ 
ural,  perhaps  a  necessary,  tendency  in  his  body  to  return  to  the 
dust  as  it  was.  But  perfection  in  a  being  destined  to  immor¬ 
tality  forbids  the  fact  of  death  as  man  now  experiences  it.*  But 
for  sin  death,  as  a  fact  in  history,  would  not  have  entered  into 
the  world  of  human  experience.  Sin  entered  the  world,  and 
death  by  sin.  How  the  historical  fact  of  death  would  have  been 
prevented  we  are  not  told,  but  many  infer  that  the  power  and 
providence  which  preserve  man  always  would  have  secured 
perfect  health  till  probation  terminated.  Providence  would 
have  preserved  man  till  the  purposes  of  his  earthly  life  were 
accomplished,  and  then,  like  Enoch  and  Elijah,  he  would  have 
been  translated — changed  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  as  it  will 
be  with  the  quick  at  the  last  day ;  he  would  have  put  on  im¬ 
mortality,  and  mortality  had  been  swallowed  up  of  life.” 

What  do  the  terms  “image”  and  “likeness”  signify?  The 
words  are  synonymous.  We  see  no  reason  for  supposing  that 
they  have  different  shades  of  meaning  or  that  they  refer  to 
different  things.  They  indicate  simple  conformableness  or  re¬ 
semblance — things  of  like  nature  or  characteristics.  The  terms 
are  sometimes  employed  to  represent  only  a  similarity  of  appear¬ 
ance,  at  other  times  an  actual  correspondence.  There  can  be  no 
question  that  they  are  employed  here  in  the  more  radical  sense. 

*  In  the  main  this  is  a  fair  statement,  but  not  without  some  fanciful  elements.  It 
is  impossible  to  know  whether  or  not,  if  man  had  not  sinned,  he  would  have  been 
subject  to  physical  death.  It  is  entirely  certain  that  he  was  not  to  remain  forever 
in  the  organism  given  him  at  the  time  of  his  creation,  or  in  an  organism  fashioned 
as  it  was.  It  was  made  for  an  earthly  life  and  conditioned  by  environments  that 
were  not  designed  to  be  permanent.  Nothing  is  more  rationally  certain  than  this. 
What  the  change  would  have  been  could  only  be  matter  of  conjecture  if  not  revealed. 


Adam. 


11 


The  creature  was  made  in  the  actual  likeness  of  the  Creator, 
and  the  image  was  in  the  thing  made,  not  in  its  accidents. 
This  fact  discountenances  the  idea  that  it  was,  as  some  have 
vainly  imagined,  official  resemblance.  The  dominion  assigned 
to  man  was  an  emolument  of  his  nature  because  he  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God,  but  it  was  not  itself  the  image.  The 
image  was  invested  in  that  which  was  made,  dominion  was  con¬ 
ferred  upon  that  which  was  made.  The  image  was  before  the 
dominion  and  was  the  ground  of  the  dominion.  The  preroga¬ 
tives  of  dominion  inhere  in  the  created  image  of  God.  This 
will  serve  to  point  out  in  what  part  of  the  nature  of  man  the 
image  was.  It  was  in  that  wherein  the  powers  or  qualifications 
for  dominion  are  found.  It  was  certainly  not  in  the  physical 
or  animal  nature.  The  fashion  of  the  body  was,  indeed,  noble, 
not  improbably  the  highest  typical  and  ideal  form — the  very 
form  which  is  impressed  upon  the  finite  spirit  itself ;  but,  how¬ 
ever  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  predicate  was  not  of  the 
form  or  the  essence  of  the  organism,  but  of  the  very  essence 
and  substance  of  the  spirit.  There  was  nothing  in  the  animal 
to  resemble  him  to  his  Maker,  neither  form,  nor  essence,  nor 
attribute.  There  was  total  want  of  resemblance.  We  search 
in  vain  here  for  anything  of  which  the  predication  can  be  made. 
We  find  but  a  form  of  dust,  which  is  not  resemblance  of  the 
Infinite.  The  predicate  is  of  the  spirit,  which  is  the  true  man. 
Here  the  image  is  complete.  It  is  the  image,  not  the  identity. 
Image  implies  neither  sameness  nor  equality.  The  infant  is 
the  image  of  the  man,  not  his  equal.  The  finite  cannot  resem¬ 
ble  the  Infinite  in  measure ;  still,  there  may  be  likeness.  God  is 
a  Spirit  Man  is  a  spirit.  The  essences  are  identical  in  nature. 
The  attributes  of  spirit  are  power  of  intellection,  volition,  emo¬ 
tion.  They  exist  in  the  divine  and  in  the  human.  Spirit  is 
free  and  responsible.  It  has  power  of  ideality,  of  reflection,  of 
self-consciousness.  It  discerns  beauty,  and  truth,  and  right, 


12 


Studies  in  Theology. 


and  obligation.  It  knows  and  loves  with,  discrimination.  It  is 
cause,  and  detects  cause.  It  has  spontaneity  of  energy  and  de¬ 
termines  its  own  activity.  It  is  capable  of  exquisite  happiness 
— happiness  from  supersensible  sources.  It  formulates  thought 
as  history,  poetry,  science.  It  has  power  to  express  its  concepts 
in  words  and  deeds.  It  arranges  and  combines  in  infinite  vari¬ 
ety.  It  creates  instruments  and  ends  for  itself.  It  is  capable 
of  interminable  progress.  It  is  imperishable.  These  are  its 
characteristics,  and  in  all  these  respects  it  differs  from  all  other 
created  things.  The  gulf  of  separation  is  impassable.  Herein, 
in  essence  and  powers,  is  found  the  image  of  God. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  we  think,  that  the  intellectual  and 
ethical  nature  of  man,  as  invested  in  a  spirit,  is  that  wherein  is 
the  divine  likeness ;  that  which  makes  him  a  child  and  not  a 
mere  creature  of  God.  The  child  inherits  the  nature  of  the 
Father.  The  mere  creature  does  not  necessarily  possess  the 
nature  of  the  Creator.  Derivation  is  not  kinship.  Man  is  child 
and  heir.  The  nature  and  inheritance  both  descend  to  him. 
As  child  and  heir  he  was  made  to  be  immortal. 

He  is  but  a  finite  image.  His  nature  discovers  to  us  the 
nature  of  his  Father,  but  his  perfections  are  not  equal  in  measure. 
His  attributes  image  those  of  his  Father,  but  in  him  they  are 
germs;  in  his  Father  they  are  perfect.  Though  like  God  he  is 
not  God,  nor  a  part  of  God,  as  some  have  vainly  imagined.  His 
spirit  was  not  an  emanation  or  an  inflow  of  the  Infinite  Spirit, 
as  a  drop  from  a  fountain,  to  return  again  to  the  infinite  ocean 
when  the  vessel  which  contains  it  is  shattered.  It  was  a  created 
spirit,  new  and  self-contained ;  destined  to  continue  individual, 
separate  from  all  other  spirits,  in  its  personal  essence  and  inde¬ 
pendent  consciousness,  to  all  eternity.  It  was  forever  to  know 
itself  as  differentiable,  and  to  put  forth  its  own  attributes,  and 
accomplish  its  own  history,  and  come  to  its  own  end  under  its 
own  law  and  spontaneities. 


Adam. 


13 


It  was,  and  knew  itself  to  be,  amenable.  It  was  to  have  a 
history  of  its  own  in  which  no  other  could  participate,  which 
would  forever  denote  it  as  a  separate  and  discrete  existence ;  a 
life  and  consciousness  wThich  could  neither  be  divided  nor  trans¬ 
ferred,  nor  merged,  nor  extinguished ;  a  golden  thread  of  con¬ 
tinuous  and  unbroken  personal  experience  that  should  forever 
be  known  by  itself  as  its  own,  and  not  another’s. 

God  is  a  pure,  unpicturable  Spirit.  It  is  impossible  to  con¬ 
ceive  that  he  has  a  form.  The  Bible  declares  that  he  has 
neither  form  nor  shape.  Any  likeness  to  him  must  be  in  form¬ 
less  qualities.  In  these  respects  it  is  easy  to  point  out  the 
resemblances  between  him  and  his  creature,  man,  and  between 
them  alone.  The  qualities  which  they  possess  in  common  are 
spiritual  qualities.  If  God  be  a  pure,  unpicturable  Spirit,  so 
also  is  man.  Man  dwells  in  a  body,  but  he  is  not  a  body,  but 
a  spirit.  They  are  alike  invisible.  They  manifest  themselves, 
or  come  to  manifestation  in  the  same  way,  by  some  external 
act.  They  reveal  the  same  qualities,  of  thought,  feeling,  will. 
In  each  intelligence  discerns  an  end,  feeling  impels  to  it,  will 
realizes  it.  The  resemblance  is  that  of  parent  and  child.  It  is 
minute  and  complete  in  every  feature,  touching  every  element 
of  consciousness.  There  is  in  each  a  like  sense  of  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  the  good ;  like  aptitudes  for  adapting  means  to  ends, 
like  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  like  moral  impulses  and  feelings 
of  obligation  to  the  good,  like  pleasures  and  displeasures,  like 
freedom  and  self-determining  power,  like  sense  of  justice  and 
mercy,  like  grounds  of  happiness,  and  like  antagonisms.  One 
is  infinite,  the  other  is  finite  and  imperfect.  Their  unlikenesses 
are  simply  in  the  degrees  of  their  qualities  or  perfections,  not  in 
essence  or  radical.  The  one  is  the  infinitely  perfect  Pattern  in 
whom  is  all  fullness.  The  other  is  the  infant  germ  which  may 
forever  expand  toward  its  infinite  Exemplar. 


14 


Studies  ix  Theology. 


INCLUSIONS  OF  THE  CREATIVE  ACT. 

Several  questions  of  importance  immediately  arise  concern¬ 
ing  this  wonderful  being.  So  far  we  have  seen  what  he  was  in 
the  elements  of  his  nature — a  spirit  created  in  the  image  of 
Grod,  shrined  in  a  body  formed  of  dust  of  the  earth ;  a  com¬ 
pound,  or,  rather,  a  union  of  two  differentiable  lives.  Further 
on  we  shall  see  how  those  constituent  parts  were  related  to  each 
other  and  the  diverse  laws  governing  them,  together  with  the 
actual  results  flowing  from  them.  For  the  present  we  consider 
the  just-made  creature  prior  to  all  personal  history  or  action. 

What  were  the  inclusions  of  the  creative  act?  To  this  we 
are  constrained  to  answer:  Creation  imparted  being  with  the 
attributes  inhering,  and  nothing  more ;  an  organized  body  (sen¬ 
sory  system)  with  its  life,  and  a  spirit  with  its  faculties,  and 
nothing  more. 

The  spirit  contained  in  it  attributes  of  personality — power  to 
begin  to  know  and  act  in  all  forms  of  intellections,  power  to 
exercise  volitional  freedom  and  capacity  to  feel  sense  of  obliga¬ 
tion — and  so  all  the  requisite  powers  to  begin  a  moral  history 
and  work  out  a  moral  character  and  destiny.  The  gift  bestowed 
by  the  creative  act  was  that  of  a  complete  and  perfect  organism 
and  ethical  nature  completely  endowed  for  use  and  develop¬ 
ment — just  that  and  nothing  more.  Two  sets  of  laws  were  cor¬ 
porate  in  the  being :  one  set,  laws  necessitating  his  outgo,  so  far 
as  he  was  a  thing ;  the  other,  laws  addressed  to  his  conscious¬ 
ness  as  a  person,  to  which  he  was  free. 

Was  he  holy?  Everything  in  the  answer  depends  on  the 
meaning  we  attach  to  the  word  “  holy.”  For  want  of  precision, 
perhaps,  as  to  the  significance  of  the  term,  the  point  has  given 
rise  to  much  confusing  disputation. 


Inclusions  of  the  Creative  Act. 


15 


If  by  the  term  we  mean  innocent,  without  guilt,  Yes.  The 
new-made  creature  had  only  what  was  given  him  of  God ;  he 
could  not,  therefore,  have  taint  of  sin.  If  by  the  term  we  mean 
yet  more  than  freedom  from  taint  of  guilt — capacity  to  know 
and  love  God,  capacity  to  know  and  feel  obligation  to  the  right, 
direct  and  spontaneous  movement  of  the  affections  toward  God 
— then  still,  Yes.  We  cannot  doubt  that  the  double  nature  of 
the  new-made  creature  was  so  adjusted  as  to  make  it  natural 
to  it  to  move  freely  along  the  course  of  joyful  obedience  and 
worshipful  love.  As  such  God  approved  the  work  of  his  own 
hand — pronounced  him  good.  All  that  is  implied  in  good,  as 
descriptive  of  a  perfect  work,  of  a  most  noble  nature,  he  was. 
But  it  must  be  obvious  that  in  all  this  we  are  predicating  of  a 
creature  endowed  with  power  of  responsible  action,  and  of  his 
perfect  fitness  to  act  aright;  that  is,  we  are  predicating  of  a 
work  of  God. 

If  we  mean  by  the  word  “  holy”  a  quality  of  a  moral  being 
which  results  from  free  conformity  to  the  law  of  right  which  he 
perceives  to  be  obligatory,  then  holiness  cannot  be  concreated, 
but  is  a  quality  of  character  which  results  from  the  free  forth- 
putting  of  personality.  As  we  view  it,  a  moral  nature,  how¬ 
ever  perfect,  is  different  from  a  moral  character,  and  is  the  an¬ 
tecedent  and  indispensable  condition  of  it.  It  is  not  the  nature 
which  makes  the  being  holy,  but  the  free  action  of  the  being 
toward  the  law  which  governs  him.  By  free  action  we  mean, 
not  external  action  alone,  or  chiefly,  but  the  free,  spontaneous, 
personal  action  of  the  moral  affections  and  of  the  will,  and 
external  acts  of  conformity  to  a  law  either  directly  and  inspira¬ 
tionally  revealed,  or  a  law  voiced  by  a  perfect  and  uncorrupted 
reason  and  conscience.  Holiness  is  quality  of  a  person,  result¬ 
ing  from  and  determinable  by  a  free  conformity  to  a  righteous 
law.  It  resides  in  will  as  volitionating,  or  results  therefrom. 
It  implies  a  nature,  but  it  cannot  attach  to  a  nature  as  such,  but 


16 


Studies  in  Theology. 


only  to  a  personality  after,  or  concurrently  with  and  conse¬ 
quent  upon,  action,  or  forthputting  of  agency.  Even  in  God, 
who  is  the  thrice  holy  One,  that  which  makes  him  such  is  his 
free  determination  of  himself  to  the  good.  He  is  holy,  yea,  the 
11  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  of  Hosts,”  because  he  wills 
holily.  Did  he  will  otherwise  he  would  cease  to  be  the  Holy 
One.  There  is  no  holiness  without  this  primitive  act  of  the 
will  determining  the  person  to  that  which  is  good.  The  act 
must  be  a  free  and  purely  personal  act.  A  moral  nature  can 
be  created,  that  is,  a  being  who  is  intelligent,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  discern  between  the  good  and  the  bad,  or  right  and  wrong ; 
a  being  who  can  feel  the  obligation  to  the  good  and  right,  and 
who  has  power  to  determine  himself  thereto  with  perfect  free¬ 
dom.  Such  a  being  may  be  created,  but  the  quality  of  holiness 
cannot  be  concreated  with  his  being  but  must  arise  from  the 
free  determination  of  himself  to  the  right  The  possession  of 
moral  attributes  by  a  being  constitutes  him  a  moral  nature  or 
being,  but  it  does  not  alone  impart  to  him  any  moral  quality. 
The  preeminence  of  man  over  other  creatures  consists  in  attri¬ 
butes  such  that  by  their  use  he  may  acquire  moral  quality. 
The  nature  in  the  one  case  is  of  higher  quality  than  in  the 
other,  and  its  possibilities  in  kind  and  degree  of  excellence  are 
incomparably  superior.  The  one  bears  the  image  of  God ;  the 
other  is  a  mere  thing.  The  attempt  to  find  in  the  personal 
moral  quality  of  holy  character  the  image  of  God,  in  which  man 
was  created,  is  as  inconsistent  with  the  principles  and  teachings 
of  the  Bible  as  it  is  impossible  of  success.  There  is  a  close 
resemblance  in  the  holiness  of  God  and  the  holiness  of  man. 
Holiness  or  righteousness  in  both  is  identical  in  principle,  and 
the  principle  shows  that  it  cannot  be  a  concreated  quality.  It 
is  simply  the  free  self-determination  of  a  being  toward  that 
which  is  cognized  as  right  from  the  moral  conviction  that  he 

ought  so  to  determine  himself.  When  a  sinful  creature  is 
6 


Inclusions  of  the  Creative  Act. 


17 


renewed,  or  restored,  or  brought  up  to  a  state  of  righteousness 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  he  becomes  in  character  like  his  holy  Lord 
and  Maker,  and  it  is  proper  to  speak  of  him  as  renewed  in  the 
image  of  God.  Had  he  forever  obeyed  the  law  of  God  he 
would  forever  have  stood  in  the  moral  image  of  his  Maker ;  but 
the  image  in  which  he  was  created  is  one  of  nature  and  attri¬ 
butes,  and  one  which  never  was  and  never  can  be  lost. 

The  possibility  of  a  created  holiness  has  in  it  many  implicates 
which  it  is  quite  important  to  notice. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Adam  ever  became  righteous,  or 
that  he  ever  did  one  virtuous  or  holy  act ;  that  he  resisted  a 
single  solicitation  to  evil  is  nowhere  apparent  The  utmost  that 
can  be  said  of  him  from  the  record  is  that  he  passed  from  the 
hands  of  his  Creator  a  good  moral  creature,  and  was  approved 
as  such.  It  is  unwarrantable  to  attach  to  this  account  any  other 
meaning  than  that  he  was  well  and  properly  made.  He  was 
good  as  a  moral  being,  that  is,  fitted  to  the  ends  of  moral  exist¬ 
ence,  in  the  same  sense  in  which  other  things  were  good,  as 
adapted  to  the  ends  for  which  they  were  made.  Thus  complete 
Adam  was  set  up  for  the  moral  struggle  upon  which  he  was 
immediately  to  enter,  and  in  which  he  was  to  acquire  a  charac¬ 
ter  of  holiness  or  unholiness  as  he  should  observe  or  violate 
the  law  of  righteousness  imposed  upon  him.  That  he  obeyed 
for  a  single  moment  a  single  requirement  is  not  in  the  history. 
He  soon  fell  into  evil  There  was  no  strong,  manly  resistance. 
The  great  angels  may  have  won  their  crowns  after  long  and 
perilous  struggles.  We  employ  the  word  “struggle,”  not  to 
imply  that  to  an  unsinning  being  the  conflict  of  good  and  evil 
has  in  it  all  the  elements  of  difficulty  that  ensue  upon  a  fallen 
and  degenerate  condition,  but  that  the  winning  and  mainte¬ 
nance  of  holy  character — which  consists  in  choosing  the  right 
against  the  wrong  until  holy  habit  is  formed — always  implies  ef¬ 
fort,  need  of  watchfulness,  and  resistance  of  alluring  temptations. 


18 


Studies  in  Theology. 


Creation  imposes  a  nature;  that  is,  it  is  an  act  of  Omnipo¬ 
tence  by  which  a  being  or  thing  of  a  particular  kind  is  called 
into  existence.  All  that  it  is  or  can  be  as  a  creature  the  Crea¬ 
tor  makes  it  to  be,  or  capable  of  being,  and  the  terms  which 
adequately  describe  what  it  is  describe  the  nature  imposed  upon 
it  by  its  Maker,  and  nothing  else.  It  can  neither  abrogate  it¬ 
self,  nor  improve  itself,  nor  in  any  way  change  itself,  except  by 
use  or  abuse  of  powers  vested  in  it.  The  creative  fiat  fixes 
its  nature  forever,  and  God  only  is  forever  its  author  and  he 
alone  is  responsible  for  it.  The  only  way  in  which  moral 
quality  can  be  involved  with  respect  to  a  nature  is  the  moral 
quality  of  the  act  which  originates  it.  The  law  of  any  and 
every  nature  is  nothing  but  the  fixed  and  unchangeable  will  of 
God,  which  forever  determines  what  it  shall  be.  If  the  law 
were  changed  the  change  must  be  in  the  will  of  God.  He  who 
makes  nature  is  above  it,  but  he  only  can  reverse,  alter,  sus¬ 
pend,  or  change  any  one  of  his  own  laws.  The  nature  of  a 
moral  creature  is  no  exception.  In  this  respect  it  does  not 
differ  from  other  beings.  Its  nature  is  imposed  and  can  never 
become  anything  else.  It  has  no  more  to  do  with  its  nature 
than  a  tree,  or  an  animal,  or  a  stone  has  to  do  with  its  nature. 
It  is  no  more  a  subject  of  praise  or  blame  for  its  nature  than 
these  other  creatures  are,  and  it  never  can  be.  It  has  no  power 
to  become  responsible  for  its  nature.  Thus  it  appears  that  a 
moral  being,  while  free  as  to  his  acts — to  the  whole  matter  of 
determining  himself  to  certain  ends  in  obedience  to  certain 
known  laws — is,  as  to  his  being,  under  the  common  law  of 
necessity  which  dominates  all  created  existence.  As  to  its 
nature  it  has  no  power  to  renounce  itself  and  become  anything 
else  than  it  is.  It  is  held  in  the  omnipotent  grasp  of  natural 
law ;  that  is,  of  a  necessitating  omnipotent  will.  So,  then,  here 
is  a  being  under  two  laws :  one,  as  to  one  part  of  him,  coercive, 
inviolable,  universal,  self-executed ;  another,  as  to  another  part 


Inclusions  of  the  Creative  Act. 


19 


of  him,  commanded,  required,  but  to  the  obedience  of  which  he 
is  free  and  unconstrained,  which  he  may  renounce,  disobey, 
transgress :  the  first  the  law  of  things,  the  second  the  law  for 
persons ;  the  first  natural,  the  second  moral ;  the  first  enforced 
by  power,  the  second  commanded ;  the  first  the  necessity  of  the 
being  under  it,  the  second  the  conscious  ought  of  the  person 
commanded,  but  which,  however,  may  be  disregarded,  and  the 
obedience  or  disobedience  to  which,  because  it  must  be  rendered 
in  freedom,  constitutes  the  righteousness  or  unrighteousness  of 
the  person  obliged  by  it. 

It  is  obvious,  from  the  principles  here  laid  down,  that  man 
was  a  unique  creature,  and  by  the  constitution  he  received  was 
ordained  to  be  the  artisan  of  his  own  destiny — he  alone  of  all 
earthly  creatures  having  intrusted  to  him  the  power  to  break  or 
kee]3  his  law,  and  so  to  reap  the  benefits  of  obedience  or  incur 
the  penalties  of  transgression :  in  the  former  case  to  become 
good  and  holy  in  character,  and  raise  himself  to  holy  happiness ; 
in  the  latter  to  constitute  himself  sinful  or  evil,  and  guilty,  and 
come  to  the  miseries  of  remorse  and  reprobation. 

Two  courses  were  open  to  him.  To  one  he  was  commanded, 
from  the  other  prohibited ;  to  either  and  alike  free.  Which, 
he  must  determine  for  himself.  The  one  was  enforced  by  an 
inward  sense  of  obligation  as  well  as  external  command.  To  it 
his  nature  was  attuned.  He  was  made  for  it.  He  spontane- 
ouslv  felt  its  attraction  and  obligation.  To  the  other  he  was 
allured  by  temptation.  Being  ethical  in  his  constitution,  he 
could  not  but  be  plied  with  the  sense  of  the  ought  and  the  ought 
not  He  must  act  in  the  presence  and  under  the  pressure  of 
this  sense.  His  decision,  freely  rendered  but  not  without  influ¬ 
ence,  determines  his  character  and  destiny. 

Such  was  man  as  he  came  from  the  hand  of  his  Maker.  It 
was  a  great  venture,  and  its  future  must  vindicate  its  wisdom 

and  justice,  not  to  say  its  benevolence.  The  outcome  is  known 

6 


20 


Studies  in  Theology. 


— not  fully,  but  in  part.  Eternity  must  be  added  to  time  to 
make  the  revelation  complete.  When  its  fuller  light  comes 
much  that  is  for  the  present  in  shadow  will  be  cleared  up.  The 
result  of  the  hazard  was  that  man  broke  his  law  and  opened 
the  floodgate  of  sin,  whose  dreadful  history  has  darkened  the 
universe.  Before  we  enter  upon  that  sad  chapter  and  attempt 
to  find  its  meaning  let  us  for  a  brief  space  inquire  what  prob¬ 
ably  might  have  been  had  the  free  choice  been  otherwise ;  that 
is,  had  the  primal  man  obeyed  the  law  and  made  for  himself  a 
holy  character. 

In  raising  the  inquiry  we  do  not  forget  that  the  answer  must 
be  largely  conjectural,  but  it  need  not  be  entirely  so.  There 
are  grounds  for  rational  inductions,  if  not  for  absolute  knowl¬ 
edge,  both  as  to  what  might  have  been  and  as  to  what  certainly 
would  not  have  been.  In  treating  of  the  actual  case  there  are 
so  many  false  or  unwarranted  assumptions  frequently  intro¬ 
duced,  as  to  what  would  have  been  had  the  case  been  the  reverse, 
that  the  question  becomes  not  merely  interesting  as  a  matter  of 
speculation,  but  to  some  degree  important  as  a  practical  inquiry. 

1.  It  is  often  assumed  that  had  the  Adam  kept  his  law  he 
would,  after  a  sufficient  interval,  have  been  confirmed  in  holy 
character,  and  by  reason  of  his  relation  to  his  posterity  there 
would  have  been  born  to  him  a  holy  seed,  who  likewise,  having 
had  their  probation  in  him,  would  have  inherited  his  holy  char¬ 
acter  and  would  have  been  confirmed  in  holiness,  and  so  sin 
would  never  have  become  a  fact  in  human  history.  This  is  a 
pure  figment  of  imagination,  and  not  merely  without  warrant 
of  the  word  of  God  but  in  violent  contradiction  of  its  ethical 
principles,  which  will  admit  of  no  proxies.  Under  the  divine 
government  every  soul  must  account  for  itself,  and  its  ethical 
character  must  be  determined  by  itself.  The  discussion  of  this 
point  will  emerge  when  we  come  to  consider,  further  on,  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  hereditary  guilt. 


Inclusions  of  the  Creative  Act. 


21 


The  utmost  that  is  warranted  is  this:  Had  the  Adam  by 
obedience  won  a  holy  character  he  would,  in  due  process,  have 
acquired  permanence  of  holiness,  through  him  sin  would  not 
have  blighted  the  world,  and  had  children  been  born  to  him 
they  would  have  inherited  an  unblighted  nature  with  which 
to  commence  their  probation.  That  any  one  of  these  would 
have  acted  better  than  he  did  act  there  is  no  warrant  for  assum¬ 
ing  ;  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  nothing  in  the  teachings 
and  intimations  or  implications  of  revelation.  If  they  were 
born  into  the  inheritance  of  a  moral  nature  they  must  meet  its 
conditions  and  be  subject  to  its  perils.  That  the  holy  influence 
of  holy  parentage  and  undepraved  natures  would  have  modified 
the  conditions  of  their  probation  there  is  no  room  to  doubt,  but 
that  it  would  have  prevented  them  from  sinning  is  what  no  one 
can,  upon  either  scriptural  or  rational  grounds,  assert.  The 
probabilities  are  all  the  other  way.  The  fact  that  the  first  of 
the  race  sinned  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  cer¬ 
tainly  is  no  assurance  that  among  the  millions  of  his  descend¬ 
ants  some  one  might  not  have  fallen,  and  so  have  introduced 
the  evil  of  which  he  became  the  first  frightful  example  and 
source.  We  will  not  undertake  to  conjecture  what  might  have 
been  the  possible  outcome. 

2.  It  is  often  assumed  that  had  the  Adam  won  and  main¬ 
tained  a  holy  character  he  would  have  remained  free  from  all 
sufferings  of  every  kind,  and  his  race  would  have  been  born 
into  a  heritage  of  complete  and  perfect  happiness  not  possible 
henceforth  to  be  forfeited  by  any. 

This,  like  the  figment  already  noticed,  is  pure  imagination, 
and,  like  it,  wholly  unwarranted  either  by  reason  or  revelation, 
and  is  in  violent  contradiction  of  all  the  probabilities  in  the 
case,  and,  in  fact,  subversive  of  all  ethical  laws.  It  is  even  in 
proof  that  had  the  Adam  and  all  the  long  line  of  his  descend¬ 
ants  acquired  each  for  himself  a  perfectly  holy  character,  and 


22 


Studies  in  Theology. 


maintained  it  permanently,  it  would  not  have  secured  to  them 
unsufferingness  or  complete  happiness  during  their  earthly  ex¬ 
istence  or  probationary  life. 

This  imagination — and  it  is  nothing  else — rests  on  the  gratui¬ 
tous  assumption  that  all  suffering  implies  some  sin,  is  penal  in¬ 
fliction  ;  that  where  there  is  no  sin  there  can  be  no  suffering. 
Of  this  there  is  not  a  particle  of  proof.  Against  it  is  the  solid 
testimony  of  all  the  ages  of  life  and  consciousness  in  the  moral 
and  unmoral  races.  There  is  a  hind  of  suffering  that  is  the  off¬ 
spring  of  sin ,  hut  it  is  a  peculiar  hind  and  not  inclusive  of  most 
forms ,  though  inclusive  of  the  most  terrible  forms.  This  par¬ 
ticular  subject  will  be  discussed  at  length  in  a  future  chapter. 

For  the  present  we  dismiss  it  with  the  general  remark  that  a 
life  of  trial  and  conflict  with  temptation,  involving  self-denial, 
and  a  life  under  the  conditions  of  the  animal  economy,  must 
necessarily  involve  the  possibility,  and  actuality,  of  more  or  less 
suffering,  both  of  the  affectional  and  sensational  nature.  The 
whole  economy  must  be  reversed,  or  conducted  by  constant 
miracle,  to  suppose  it  otherwise.  We  do  not,  therefore,  suppose 
that  innocence  included  unsufferingness,  but  only  precluded 
that  suffering  which  is  penal  or  retributive,  sufferings  inflicted 
for  willful  violations  of  law.  Unsufferingness,  if  it  may  be 
reached,  which  is  not  certain,  belongs  to  a  state  following  trial, 
and  beyond  the  realm  of  animal  being. 

Would  man  have  been  perfectly  happy  had  he  not  sinned? 
Suffering  is  not  happiness;  it  is  certainly  an  abatement  of 
happiness ;  but  it  does  not  necessarily  overthrow  happiness.  It 
is  possible  to  be  happy  and  at  the  same  time  suffer.  The  un¬ 
sinning  could  not  suffer  any  unhappiness  that  has  sin  for  its 
cause.  That  all  forms  of  mental  trial  or  sufferings  of  the  sym¬ 
pathetic  nature,  as  grief  or  sorrow,  would  have  been  unknown 
to  unsinning  beings  we  have  not  found  reason  to  believe.  Some 
degree  of  suffering  may  be  not  only  beneficial  as  discipline, 


Inclusions  of  the  Creative  Act. 


23 


even  to  the  innocent,  but  be  inevitable  to  finite  nature  in  a 
period  of  probation.  No  one  is  able  to  affirm  that  limitations 
are  not  always  a  form  of  suffering.  It  is  enough  for  innocence 
to  claim  and  possess  freedom  from  the  woes  of  sin,  and  such 
bliss  as  will  sweeten  whatever  of  sorrow  or  trial  it  may  experi¬ 
ence,  without  demanding  a  happiness  which  might  hardly  be 
consistent  with  love.  Who  knows  that  even  angels  or  God  are 
free  from  sorrow  ?  Who  knows  that  a  condition  of  the  highest 
possible  happiness  is  not  the  possession  of  a  nature  that  may 
sorrow?  Jesus,  the  Immaculate,  wept.  All  the  instincts  and 
sympathies  of  humanity  must  be  obliterated  to  extinguish  all 
forms  of  suffering  resulting  from  his  nature  in  a  universe  where 
suffering  and  sorrow  are  known  to  exist.  There  are  forms  of 
suffering  of  which  the  sin  of  the  sufferer  is  not  the  cause.  Sup¬ 
pose  a  translation,  say,  of  Eve,  leaving  Adam  and  her  children 
still  in  the  body.  Would  it  heighten  our  idea  of  their  nature 
and  character  to  suppose  them  insensate  to  the  loss,  their  affec¬ 
tions  unpained  by  the  bereavement?  This  only  is  reasonable: 
penal  suffering  would  be  unknown  in  an  unsinning  universe. 


24 


Studies  in  Theology. 


WHAT  IS  SIN? 

What  is  sin?  that  is,  what  is  its  essence?  There  is  no  term 
with  which  we  are  more  familiar.  It  is  not  only  one  of  the 
earliest  with  which  we  become  acquainted,  but  it  is  also  one  of 
the  most  constant  in  use,  even  long  before  we  can  form  any 
definite  idea  of  it ;  but  while,  like  most  abstract  terms,  we  do 
not  early,  or  even  ever,  have  a  clear  and  full  conception  of  its 
full  contents,  there  is  no  term,  perhaps,  which  conveys  a  more 
explicit  idea.  The  common  mind  has  no  trouble  with  it. 
Theologians  and  ethical  writers  in  the  interests  of  metaphysical 
and  theological  theories  have  imported  into  it  distracting  and 
confusing  elements.  Left  to  the  scriptural  and  common  sense 
use,  it  is  simple  and  never  misleading.  The  common  people 
understand  perfectly  what  it  means ;  but  it  has  come  into  such 
relations  to  controverted  and  disputed  points,  and  is  otherwise 
of  such  importance,  that  it  becomes  necessary  to  the  general 
interests  of  right  thinking,  and  right  action  as  well,  that  it  should 
be  thoroughly  searched,  and,  if  possible,  rescued  from  its  present 
perverted  meanings.  Perhaps  no  theological  term  is  in  greater 
need  of  reexamination.  No  thoughtful  person  doubts  that  it 
imports  something  that  is  real.  It  is  not  an  idle  term,  a  mere 
sound,  a  mythos.  It  designates  a  reality  of  the  profoundest  sig¬ 
nificance.  We  feel  sure  that  it  will  not  be  even  difficult  to 
point  out  its  exact  meaning  and  at  the  same  time  to  establish 
its  reality  and  its  universality  as  a  fact  and  a  conscious  experi¬ 
ence  of  man.  It  will  aid  to  a  clear  understanding  if  we  state 
somewhat  carefully  what  it  is  not ;  since  it  has  been  applied 
falsely,  and  that  has  been  called  sin  which  is  not  sin  and  it  has 
been  predicated  of  that  which  its  name  does  not  describe. 

Dr.  Shedd  says:  “The  intrinsic  and  innermost  characteristic 


What  is  Sin  ? 


of  sin  is  its  culpability  or  guilt.  Guilt  is  desert  of  punishment. 
Sin  is  damnable  and  punishable  before  the  moral  law.  Conse¬ 
quently  sin  must  be  the  product  of  free  agency.  Necessitated  sin  is 
a  contradiction.  The  primary  source  of  sin,  therefore,  is  the 
will,  because  this  is  the  causative  and  originating  faculty  of  the 
soul.  ‘Our  first  parents,  being  left  to  the  freedom  of  their  will, 
fell.’  From  this  inmost  center  of  the  soul  it  passes  into  the 
understanding,  and  through  the  entire  man.  The  inclinations 
and  affections  having  become  contrary  to  what  they  were  by 
creation,  the  understanding  is  darkened  and  the  conscience  is 
benumbed.’'  * 

This  statement  could  hardly  be  improved.  The  last  clause 
points  to  the  depravity  which  ensues  as  eff  ect  of  sin  which  origi¬ 
nates  it,  and  is  as  to  guilt  complete,  in  the  act  of  the  will.  This 
is  precisely  the  view  herein  advocated.  He  correctly  denies 
that  sin  is  predicable  off  the  understanding  or  of  the  sensuous 
nature.  Through  the  sensuous  nature  temptation  may  arise, 
but  sin  must  emanate  from  the  will.  In  a  very  elaborate  dis¬ 
cussion  extending  over  many  pages  f  Dr.  Shedd  attempts  to 
show  that  the  first  sin  consisted  in  the  self-determined  inclina¬ 
tion  to  sin ;  that  this  act  was  “  voluntary,”  but  not  “  volitionary.” 
The  fall,  or  sin,  had,  then,  really  taken  place  before  the  sinful 
act  of  transgression  had  taken  place.  This  subject  will  be  more 
fully  treated  when  we  come  to  consider  so-called  original  sin, 
but  we  call  attention  to  it  here.  “Voluntary,”  but  not  “voli¬ 
tionary,”  he  explains :  “It  was  will  as  desire,  not  will  as  volition ; 
will  as  inclining,  not  will  as  choosing.  The  fall  was  the  transi¬ 
tion  from  one  form  of  self-motion  to  another  form  of  self-motion, 
and  not  the  beginning  of  self-motion  for  the  first  time.  ...  It 
was  inclining  away  from  one  ultimate  end  to  another,  not  choos¬ 
ing  between  two  ultimate  ends  to  neither  of  which  was  there 
any  existing  inclination.  Adam,  before  he  fell,  was  self-deter- 

*  Dogmatic  Theology ,  toI.  ii,  p.  162.  f  Ibid.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  169-189. 

3  6 


26 


Studies  in  Theology. 


mined  to  God  and  goodness.  Consequently  in  the  garden  of 
Eden  he  had  not  to  choose  either  good  or  evil,  as  two  contraries 
to  both  of  which  his  will  was  indifferent  By  creation  he  was 
positively  inclined  to  good.  The  question  put  before  him  in 
<  the  probation  and  temptation  was  whether  he  would  remain 
holy,  as  he  was,  or  begin  a  new  inclination  to  evil ;  not  whether, 
having  no  inclination  at  all,  he  would  choose  either  good  or  evil. 
His  act  of  apostasy,  if  it  occurred,  was  to  be  an  act  of  new  and 
wrong  desire  in  place  of  the  existing  holy  desire ;  of  new  and 
wrong  self-determination  in  place  of  the  existing  and  right  self- 
determination.  The  fall  was  a  change  of  inclination,  not  the 
exertion  of  a  volition.”* 

He  makes  a  distinction  between  the  desire  or  inclination — the 
terms  are  used  interchangeably — to  partake  of  the  fruit  and  the 
desire  to  become  wise,  and  excludes  sin  from  the  former  and 
predicates  it  of  the  latter.  This  is  his  language:  “The innocent 
physical  desire  of  man’s  unfallen  nature  for  the  tree  of  knowl¬ 
edge  ;  the  rising  of  sinful  moral  desire  for  it.  1  The  woman  saw 
that  the  tree  was  good  for  food  and  that  it  was  pleasant  to  the 
eyes.’  This  denotes  merely  the  correlation  between  the  created 
qualities  of  man’s  physical  constitution  and  this  particular 
product  of  God’s  creation.  It  was  not  wrong,  but  perfectly  in¬ 
nocent,  to  perceive  that  the  tree  was  good  for  food ,  and  to  desire 
it  as  such,  and  to  be  pleasantly  affected  by  the  beauty  of  it. 
This  divinely  established  relation  between  man’s  physical  nature 
and  the  tree  of  knowledge  constituted  the  subjective  basis  for 
the  temptation.  Had  the  tree  been  repulsive  to  the  sight  and 
taste  its  fruit  would  not  have  been  employed  by  Satan  as  a 
means  of  solicitation.  ...  But  the  account  in  Gen.  iii,  6,  fur¬ 
ther  adds  that  the  tree  of  knowledge  came  to  be  for  Eve  a  tree 
£to  be  desired,  to  make  one  wise .’  The  sinful  moral  desire  here 
mentioned  is  different  from  the  innocent  physical  desire  spoken 

*  Dogmatic  Theology,  vol.  ii,  pp.  172,  173. 


6 


What  is  Sin? 


27 


of  in  the  preceding  part  of  the  verse.  It  was  a  mental  hanker¬ 
ing  after  the  fruit  as  imparting  to  the  eater  a  hind  of  knowledge 
which  God  had  forbidden  to  man .  This  is  something  new,  and 
different  from  the  innocent  craving  belonging  to  man’s  sensuous 
nature.  To  desire  the  fruit  simply  as  food,  and  as  a  beautiful 
object,  was  innocent.  But  to  desire  a  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil  such  as  the  ‘  gods  ’  had,  which  the  eating  of  it  would  com¬ 
municate,  was  rebellious  and  wicked,  because  this  kind  of 
knowledge  had  been  prohibited.  .  .  .  The  self-willed  origination 
and  rising  of  this  desire  for  a  knowledge  that  God  had  forbidden 
was  the  fall  of  Eve.”  * 

According  to  this  theory  desire  is  a  voluntary  act,  that  is, 
an  act  of  the  will ;  and  sin  is  predicable  of  this  act.  It  does  not 
escape,  nor  does  the  author  desire  to  escape,  from  the  position 
that  sin  originates  in  the  act  of  the  will.  But  we  must  dissent 
from  his  position  that  desire  is  an  act  of  the  will,  but  not  a 
choice  of  the  will.  Desire  is,  indeed,  not  a  choice,  and  there¬ 
fore  not  an  act  of  the  will.  Desire  is  a  feeling  which  arises  in 
the  soul  wholly  irrespective  of  the  will;  a  feeling  which  is 
wholly  involuntary  when  an  object  is  presented  which  for  any 
reason  is  agreeable.  It  is  simply  a  feeling  awakened  by  the 
object.  The  feeling  inclines  the  person  to  the  object  wholly 
without  the  will.  It  moves,  or  is  motive  to  the  will  to  act,  but 
is  not  a  form  of  will  action;  It  is  an  action  on  the  will,  but  not 
of  the  will  It  can  have  no  moral  quality  until  it  is  taken  up 
by  the  will  and  results  in  a  free  choice  or  rejection.  It  draws; 
the  soul  feels  the  drawing  because  it  is  its  nature  to  do  so.  If 
the  discovery  be  made  that  the  drawing  is  to  an  object  that  is 
wrong  the  feeling  of  the  drawing  is  not  itself  wrong,  for  it  is 
involuntary ;  but  if  the  soul  yield  to  the  drawing  when  it  per¬ 
ceives  that  it  is  wrong,  that  is,  that  the  thing  proposed  is  wrong, 
then  sin  is  committed.  It  is  the  free  yielding  that  is  sin.  The 

*  Dogmatic  Theology,  pp.  176-178. 


28 


Studies  in  Theology. 


desire  or  inclination  is  not  an  act  of  the  will,  but  the  yielding 
is.  The  will  does  not  create  the  desire  or  inclination  to  the 
object.  That  arises  from  the  constitution  of  the  soul  itself — is 
natural  and  inevitable.  It  is  the  necessary  antecedent  of  moral 
decision.  The  soul  could  not  act  volitionally  without  it.  The 
voluntary  and  the  moral  actions  begin  after  the  desire  is  awak¬ 
ened,  and  not  until  then.  The  will  acts  on  the  desire,  accept¬ 
ing  it  or  rejecting  it. 

This  idea  runs  through  all  Calvinistic  theology  from  Augus¬ 
tine  down,  and  comes  to  great  prominence  in  Edwards  on  Origi¬ 
nal  Sin,  and  also  in  his  treatment  of  the  Will.  It  is  designed 
to  locate  sin  in  the  disposition,  or  inclination,  or  desire,  back  of 
every  volitionary  act,  but  to  connect  it  with  the  will  by  identi¬ 
fying  these  states  with  the  will.  It  is  invented  for  the  purpose 
of  making  an  inherited  sinful  inclination  or  disposition  to  sin 
sin,  and  so  prove  the  guilt  of  all  who  by  nature  are  sinfully  in¬ 
clined.  Edwards  makes  the  inherited  sinful  disposition  the 
essence  of  sin.  To  the  view  he  presents  we  have  the  following 
objections : 

First.  It  teaches  that  the  holy  Adam,  as  he  asserts  he  was, 
fell  into  sin  by  creating  in  himself  an  inclination  to  sin  before 
he  committed  any  sinful  act.  What  does  this  mean  ?  Can  it 
mean  any  other  thing  than  this,  that  he  simply  determined  to 
do  what  he  was  forbidden  to  do  ?  If  so,  what  was  that  other 
thing  ?  Is  it  that  he  determined  to  be  inclined  or  to  desire  to 
break  the  law,  created  in  himself  the  inclination  to  disobey? 
How  did  he  do  this — by  an  act  of  will,  or  without  an  act  of  will  ? 
If  by  an  act  of  will,  was  then  the  act  of  will  his  sin,  or  was  the 
effect  of  it  his  sin?  He  declares  that  the  inclination  is  volun- 
tary,  but  is  not  a  choice.  What,  then,  was  it  ?  Does  the  will 
act  without  choosing  to  act?  and  is  such  an  act  sin? 

My  second  objection  is  to  his  statement  that  his  sin  consisted 
in  the  desire  to  become  wise,  which  desire  was  forbidden. 

6'  -  J.  V 


I 


What  is  Sin? 


29 


I  deny  that  the  desire  to  become  wise  was  the  thing  forbid¬ 
den.  There  is  not  a  hint  of  that  in  the  account  or  anywhere  in 
the  word  of  God.  The  thing  forbidden,  and  the  only  thing, 
was  the  taking  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  and  the 
eating  it.  The  desire  for  it  was  not  the  thing  forbidden.  On 
that  subject  the  law  made  no  deliverance.  It  was  calculated  to 
create  desire.  It  is  admitted  by  Dr.  Shedd  himself  that  the 
desire  was  innocent  and  natural,  but  he  brings  forward  as 
ground  of  guilt,  not  the  disobedience  to  the  command,  nor  the 
desire  of  the  palate,  but  the  desire  for  forbidden  wisdom.  But 
forbidden  wisdom  is  neither  mentioned  nor  implied  in  the  case. 
If  the  desire  created  by  adaptation  of  the  fruit  to  gratify  the 
palate  was  innocent,  because  natural,  the  desire  for  knowledge 
was  no  less  natural.  If  the  physical  organism  was  created 
with  tastes  which  the  fruit  would  awaken  and  solicit,  the  mind 
was  also  created  with  faculties  and  desires  for  knowledge. 

My  third  objection  is  that  sin  is  not  predicable  of  desires 
simply  as  such,  either  before  or  since  the  fall,  but  desires  be¬ 
come  provocative  of  sin  when  they  are  indulged.  “  Man  is 
tempted  when  he  is  drawn  away  of  his  lusts  [desires]  and  en¬ 
ticed,  and  lust  [desire]  when  it  hath  conceived  [when  it  has 
induced  consent  of  the  will]  bringeth  forth  sin.” 

Desire  for  the  forbidden  fruit,  whether  viewed  as  palatable  or 
as  source  of  knowledge,  was  natural  to  Adam,  sprang  from  his 
physical  and  mental  constitution,  and  was  not  forbidden ;  was 
innocent.  The  prohibition  was  of  the  indulgence  of  the  desire. 
The  restraint  was  on  taking  and  eating.  The  sin  was  voluntary 
violation  of  that  law,  and  that  only  was  sin ;  and  the  same  is 
true  in  every  case. 

Where  there  is  a  law  forbidding  anv  act,  to  refrain  from  the 
act  is  duty,  however  strong  the  temptation.  The  temptation 
involves  no  sin,  however  strong  the  inducement.  If  the  induce¬ 
ment  is  absolutely  irresistible,  compliance  involves  no  sin,  since 

s-  6 


i 


30 


Studies  m  Theology. 

impossibilities  can  never  be  required.  When  the  will  begins 
to  dally  with,  forbidden  things,  then  is  the  beginning  of  consent 
Any  yielding  tends  to  compliance.  When  sin  has  been  com¬ 
mitted  the  moral  nature  is  depraved,  and  inclination,  or  desire, 
or  disposition  to  continue  in  sin  is  born,  and  tends  to  perma-  - 
nence.  These  are  the  fruits  of  sin. 

Adam’s  sin  was  the  sin  of  disobedience  to  the  divine  com¬ 
mand.  It  did  not  consist  in  his  first  creating  an  inclination  to 
it,  but  it  did  consist  in  yielding  to  solicitation  addressed  to  his 
physical  and  moral  nature,  which  moved  him  with  desire; 
which  desire  was  innocent  and  natural,  but  compliance  with 
which  was  forbidden.  The  sin  was  possible,  but  not  necessary. 
It  was  a  free  act,  immoral,  but  not  unnatural.  By  nature  and 
constitution  he  was  temptable,  and  by  power  of  self-determina¬ 
tion  he  was  able  either  to  yield  or  resist.  He  yielded  and  fell. 
The  yielding  was  his  sin.  The  yielding  preceded  the  external 
act,  and  was  the  determination  of  the  will  to  commit  the  exter¬ 
nal  act. 

The  whole  history  of  the  case  is  as  follows :  Adam  was  cre¬ 
ated  with  a  nature  such  that,  in  certain  conditions,  it  would  be 
moved  with  involuntary  feelings  of  desire  and  inclination ;  that 
is,  on  occasions  objects  and  courses  of  possible  action  would 
present  themselves  to  him  which  for  one  cause  or  another  would 
awaken  inclination  or  desire  in  him.  These  states  would  arise 
spontaneously  and  inevitably  by  a  law  of  his  nature,  and  with¬ 
out  any  antecedent  or  concurrent  voluntary  action  on  his  part. 
When  such  purely  involuntary  desires  or  inclinations  arose  in 
him  he  would  be  moved  by  them  to  act,  as  a  will,  either  favor¬ 
ably  or  unfavorably  with  respect  to  them,  freely  determining 
which.  The  awakened  desire,  while  not  subject  to  his  will  as 
to  its  origin,  but  arising  from  his  constitution,  would  not  act  on 
him  as  a  necessitating  force,  constraining  his  will,  but  would 
act  on  him  as  a  motive  to  induce  a  will  action  on  his  part,  and 


What  is  Sin? 


31 


would  necessitate  him  to  act  either  for  or  against,  but  would 
leave  him  free  as  to  which.  Suppose  Adam  had  felt  the  desire 
but  had  resisted  it  because  the  thing  desired  was  forbidden ; 
would  he  have  been  guilty?  If  not,  then  the  desire  was  not  sin. 

But,  then,  it  is  said,  Is  not  man  born  in  sin?  If  by  the 
question  is  meant,  Is  not  man  a  sinner  as  soon  as  born,  or 
before  he  was  born?  we  answer  unhesitatingly,  No.  The  thing 
is  impossible.  No  being  can  be  a  sinner  until  he  has  personally 
made  himself  such  by  a  free  personal  transgression  of  law. 

The  discussion  upon  which  we  immediately  enter  will  bring 
under  examination  all  the  theories  with  respect  to  the  state  in 
which  man  is  born. 

W e  sum  up  the  conclusions  already  reached,  and  which  we 
hold  on  the  subject  of  sin: 

First.  Sin  is  in.  every  case  an  act  of  transgression,  and  there 
is  no  sin  possible  without  an  act  of  transgression. 

Second.  The  transgression  which  constitutes  the  person  a 
sinner  must  be  his  own  personal  act. 

Third.  A  person  cannot  sin  except  as  he  is  free  in  his  act ; 
that  is,  able  to  the  opposite. 

Fourth.  The  person  cannot  sin  if  the  law  which  he  trans¬ 
gresses  be  not  known  to  him  in  such  measure  that  he  is  con¬ 
scious  of  wrong  in  the  act  committed,  or  in  the  determination 
of  himself  thereto. 

Fifth.  The  sinful  act  is  completed  when  the  person  wills  its 
performance. 

Sin  is  not  an  entity  or  substance  of  any  kind,  material  or 
immaterial,  which  is  conveyed  from  one  being  to  another  by 
generation,  or  in  any  other  way.  It  has  no  existence  as  a  thing 
in  itself,  as  a  lump  or  atom  of  matter,  or  as  a  spirit  has. 
There  are  substances  that  are  harmful,  poisonous,  destructive 
of  life,  whose  touch  is  death ;  but  sin  is  not  predicable  of  any 
such  substance,  simple  or  compound,  natural  or  artificial.  It  is 


32 


Studies  in  Theology. 


not  a  quality  or  attribute  of  any  substance,  as  being  bom  with, 
it,  or  concrete  in  it  by  a  creative  act ;  is  not  a  product  of  the 
power  which  gives  existence  to  things  or  posited  in  things.* 
No  collocation  of  substance,  as  such,  can  produce  it.  It  is  not 
an  effect  of  any  natural  agent  or  force  inherent  in  any  substance 
or  exerted  by  any  natural  agent.  Nor  is  it  the  quality  of  any 
force,  or  the  effect  of  any  force  exerted  by  a  natural  agent, 
however  deadly  or  destructive  that  force  may  be.  It  is  not  a 
nature  or  state  conferred,  or  imposed,  either  by  the  original 
act  of  creation  or  by  propagation.  The  universe  is  stored  with 
forces  potential  of  ruin  and  mischief  to  life:  deadly  vapors, 
noxious  poisons,  elemental  disturbances  inherent  in  the  system, 
storms,  earthquakes,  and  innumerable  potencies  posited  and 
exerted  by  the  agency  which  built  it.  Of  none  of  these  can  sin 
be  predicated,  nor  can  they  be  ascribed  as  effects  of  sin.  Sin  is 
not  an  inherent  of  creation,  that  is,  of  the  universe  as  created. 
It  has  no  place  in,  and  can  be  predicated  of  nothing  of,  the 
original  system.  It  is  not  a  necessitated  effect  of  any  force 
of  mind  or  matter,  or  the  product  of  any  efficient  purpose 
or  decree  of  Grod.  Much  is  said  of  inherited  sin,  of  transmitted 
sin,  of  sin  of  nature,  of  a  nature  that  is  sin.  The  phrases  are 
misleading  and  incongruous.  The  world  is  full  of  sin,  but  it 
consists  in  none  of  the  things  described  above. 

Sin  is  predicable  of  only  one  being  on  the  earth,  and  that  is 
man.  It  is  universally  predicable  of  man.  There  is  no  man 
of  whom  it  is  not  predicable.  But,  even  of  man,  it  is  no  part 
of  the  essence  of  his  being.  It  is  not  a  quality  born  in  him,  or 
imparted  to  him  by  creation.  It  is  an  acquisition  not  by  the 
addition  of  some  foreign  substance  or  infusion.  It  is  not  of 
man  by  any  necessitation  of  his  nature.  It  is  an  intruder,  and 
might  not  have  been.  There  is  a  long-time  popular  theologiz¬ 
ing  and  carefully  prepared  teaching  that  will  not  accept  some 
*  See  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  165. 


6 


What  is  Sin? 


33 


of  these  negative  statements,  but  their  vindication  will  appear 
as  the  discussion  progresses. 

If  sin  be  not  any  of  the  things  above  described — not  a  sub¬ 
stance,  or  quality  of  any  substance,  or  force  exerted  by  any 
substance,  or  potency  of  some  kind  in  any  substance;  not  a 
nature  of  some  thing,  or  effect  which  flows  from  some  natural 
force  of  some  thing — and  if  it  be  something  which  has  reality, 
and  which  is  predicable  of  man  only,  and  which  is  not  predi¬ 
cable  of  something  in  man  as  a  part  of  his  substance  or  in¬ 
herence  of  his  nature,  what,  then,  is  it  ? 

W e  answer  to  this  question  :  Sin  is  something  which  the  indi¬ 
vidual  man  does  ;  it  is  an  act.  There  is  no  sin  where  there  is  not  a 
sinner ;  and  there  is  no  sinner  where  there  is  not  an  act  com¬ 
mitted  hy  him  which  constitutes  him  a  sinner. 

By  an  act  we  do  not  mean  merely  or  chiefly  an  external  or 
physical  act,  but  an  internal,  personal  act,  an  act  of  the  soul 
itself,  in  determining  itself  by  free  choice  to  that  which  it  knows 
to  be  in  violation  of  law.  The  sin  consists  in  this  primary  act 
of  the  will.  Any  external  act  of  disobedience  represents  the 
primary  soul  act,  and  derives  its  heinousness  from  that.  The 
sin  has  its  essence  and  complete  vileness  even  before  the  exter¬ 
nal  act  exists,  and  even,  possibly,  when  it  does  not  exist  at  all 
— from  want  of  opportunity  or  because  of  physical  hindrance. 
Thus  the  sin  is  in  every  case  an  act  of  a  free  being  in  deter¬ 
mining  himself  to  evil.  There  is,  and  can  be,  no  sin  when 
these  conditions  do  not  exist. 

W ebster  gives  a  logical  definition  which  could  scarcely  be 
improved.  He  says:  “Sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law  of 
God ;  disobedience  of  the  divine  command ;  any  violation  of 
God's  will,  either  in  purpose  or  conduct.”  Even  those  who, 
driven  by  the  exigencies  of  false  theologizing,  seek  to  find  sin  in 
nature,  constantly  show  and  assert  that  actual  sin  is  willful  dis¬ 
obedience.  This  will  appear  in  further  stages  of  the  discussion. 


34 


Studies  in  Theology. 


“  Whosoever  committetli  sin  transgressed  also  the  law ;  for 
sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law.”  * 

“  All  unrighteousness  is  sin.”  f 

“  Sin  is  any  want  of  conformity  unto,  or  transgression  of,  any 
law  of  Grod  given  as  a  rule  to  the  reasonable  creature.”  J 

By  a  reference  to  Cruden's  Concordance ,  in  his  preliminary 
remarks  on  the  word  sin,  and  in  Knapp’s  Theology ,  under  the 
heading  u  Scriptural  Terms  for  Sin,”  the  reader  may  find  in 
the  most  condensed  form  the  various  senses  in  which  the  word 
sin  occurs  in  the  Scriptures. 

We  have  introduced  here  three  definitions  of  the  term  sin: 
two  of  them  inspired  ;  the  other  uninspired,  but  of  the  highest 
human  authority.  Out  of  these  we  proceed  to  raise  a  more 
extended  discussion  of  the  nature  of  sin. 

According  to  each  of  the  above  definitions,  and  every  con¬ 
ceivable  modification  of  them,  sin  has  essential  relations  to  law. 
To  know  what  sin  is,  and  when  and  where  to  predicate  it,  it  is 
indispensable  that  we  should  know  what  that  law  is  to  which  it 
is  related  ;  for  how  can  we  find  the  breach  of  the  law  without 
perceiving  the  requirement  that  is  broken,  the  law  itself?  It 
is  by  the  comparison  of  that  which  is  alleged  as  transgression 
with  the  exact  law,  requirement,  transgressed,  that  the  fact  of 
transgression  is  ascertained.  As  when  there  is  no  law.  there  is 
no  transgression,  so  when  the  law  is  unknown  it  is  impossible 
to  predicate  the  fact  of  transgression — the  fact  of  sin. 

What,  then,  is  that  law  of  which  sin  is  the  transgression? 

There  is  a  realm  of  things,  comprising  inanimate  being  and 
creatures  that  have  life.  Pervasive  of  this  realm  is  an  estab¬ 
lished  and  necessary  order,  called  the  law  of  nature.  Within 
this  domain  transgression  is  impossible.  Each  creature,  under 
stress  of  irresistible  force,  fulfills  the  law  of  its  existence.  Sin 
cannot,  therefore,  be  transgression  of  this  law.  Speaking  of 
*  1  John  iii,  4.  f  1  John  v,  1*7.  \  Assembly's  Larger  Catechism. 


What  is  Sm  ? 


35 


this  law,  Ullmann  tersely  says :  “  This  law  of  nature  is  not, 
however,  a  power  acting  from  without ;  but  it  is  the  nature  and 
constitution  of  the  things  themselves  making  itself  irresisti¬ 
bly  felt.  Therefore  here  the  law  is  immediately  one  with  its 
fulfillment ;  nor  can  there  ever  be  a  contradiction  between  the 
two.  Hence,  also,  when  apparent  deviations  from  the  ordinary 
course  occur,  when  dangerous  and  destructive  agencies  enter  in, 
ice  cannot  speak  of  imputation  or  of  guilt  in  this  province,  because 
nature  does  only  what  she  cannot  help  doing.”  * 

We  search  in  vain  in  the  domain  of  nature  for  factual  or 
possible  sin,  since  there  is  no  transgressing  power  within  the 
sphere  of  nature. 

There  is  projected  upon,  and  among,  things,  or  the  system  of 
nature,  a  realm  of  spirits— beings  possessed  of  intelligence  and 
will.  Here,  as  there,  law  reigns,  but  it  is  not  the  law  of  force ; 
there  is  order,  but  it  is  not  the  order  of  necessity. 

Bushnell,  in  his  masterly  work,  Nature  and  the  Supernatural, 
in  the  second  chapter,  with  great  clearness  and  marvelous 
beautv,  draws  this  distinction.  In  nature  the  order  is  that  of 
causation;  in  the  supernatural,  or  among  powers,  minds,  the 
order  is  that  of  freedom. 

Ullmann  expresses  it  so  clearly  that  it  could  scarcely  be  im¬ 
proved:  “On  the  basis  of  the  life  of  nature,”  he  says,  “there 
rises  up  a  moral  life — an  ethical  kingdom  within  the  kingdom 
of  nature.  Of  necessity  an  order  must  reign  within  this  king¬ 
dom  too.  It  were  folly,  indeed,  to  suppose  that  that  most 
wonderful  cosmical  arrangement  existed  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  serve  as  a  scene  over  which  caprice  might  bear  sway ; 
that  preparations  so  pregnant  with  design  should  issue  in  results 
void  of  reason  and  purpose.  But  the  order  to  be  established 
here  will  undoubtedly  differ  radically  from  the  order  of  nature. 
Thus,  moral  personality  (even  although  situated  in  the  midst 

*  Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  p.  16. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


of  the  course  of  nature)  still  possesses  a  full  consciousness  that 
it  is  not  ruled  thereby,  nor  can  be,  but  that  it  has  in  it  a  prin¬ 
ciple  which  is  determined  by  a  power  beyond  and  above  nature. 
And  this  principle  is  free  will.  The  order  which  rules  in  this 
domain  is  free,  like  that  will  itself;  it  is  not  established  by 
force.”* 

The  law  here,  as  there,  is  the  expression  of  the  will  of  the 
infinite  Sovereign  and  is  obligatory,  but  as  duty,  and  the  crea¬ 
ture,  lifted  out  of  the  plane  of  nature,  is  endowed  with  a  power 
of  recusancy  and  disobedience.  The  ought  is  upon  him,  but  it 
is  without  coercive  force.  He  may  transgress  this  law,  and  his 
transgression  will  be  sin.  At  this  point,  and  this  only,  sin  is 
possible. 

“  He  is  not  independent  of  nature  in  the  sense  of  being  sepa¬ 
rated  from  it  in  his  action,  but  he  is  in  it,  environed  by  it,  act¬ 
ing  through  it,  partially  sovereign  over  it,  always  sovereign  as 
regards  his  self-determination,  and  only  not  completely  sovereign 
as  regards  executing  all  that  he  wills  in  it  In  certain  parts  or 
departments  of  the  soul  itself,  such  as  memory,  appetite,  passion, 
attention,  imagination,  association,  disposition,  the  will-power 
in  him  is  held  in  contact,  so  to  speak,  with  conditions  and  quali¬ 
ties  that  are  determined  partly  by  laws  of  cause  and  effect ;  for 
these  faculties  are  partly  governed  by  their  own  laws,  and 
partly  submitted  to  his  governing  will  by  their  own  laws ;  so 
that  when  he  will  exercise  any  control  over  them,  or  turn  them 
about  to  serve  his  purpose,  he  can  do  it,  in  a  qualified  sense 
and  degree,  by  operating  through  their  laws.  As  far  as  they 
are  concerned  he  is  pure  nature,  and  he  is  only  a  power  supe¬ 
rior  to  cause  and  effect  at  the  particular  point  of  volition  where 
his  liberty  culminates,  and  where  the  administration  he  is  to 
maintain  over  his  whole  nature  centers.  ”f 

*  Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  pp.  16,  17. 

f  Bushnell,  Nature  and  the  Supernatural ,  p.  61. 


What  is  Sin? 


37 


Now,  it  is  not  only  an  interesting  but  also  an  important  fact 
that  the  two  realms,  of  nature  and  the  supernatural,  in  which 
the  opposite  laws  of  causation  and  freedom  obtain,  do  not 
simply  lie  in  immediate  neighborhood  of  each  other,  but  are 
blended  and  interwoven ;  the  one  interpenetrating  the  other  so 
that  the  same  creature  is  partly  in  the  one  and  partly  in  the 
other ;  in  one  paid  of  him  under  the  common  law  of  nature  - 
necessity ,  in  the  other  absolutely  free  and  self-determining.  Pre¬ 
cisely  where  the  line  is  drawn  which  defines  the  domain  of  the 
natural  and  of  the  supernatural  is  obviously. a  most  important 
question,  as  fixing  precisely  the  sphere  of  moral  law,  and  so 
determining  the  limits  within  which  sin  may  possibly  occur. 

Man  is  a  creature  possessed  of  soul  and  body ;  or,  more  prop¬ 
erly,  man  is  a  soul  subsisting  in  a  body  and  acting  in  and 
through  it  as  an  instrument.  These  are  separable  in  idea,  and 
may  be  conceived  of  as  existing  apart.  If  we  suppose  the  soul 
absent  we  have  a  creature  left,  a  physical  organism.  In  form 
only  it  would  differ  from  other  mere  animals.  If  it  were  possi¬ 
ble  for  that  part  of  man  to  survive  in  the  absence  of  the  soul  it 
would  be  an  animal,  pure  and  simple.  Morality  could  no  more 
be  predicated  of  it  than  of  any  other  brute.  Existing  in  the 
plane  of  natural  law,  or  sheer  causation,  it  becomes  wholly  irre¬ 
sponsible.  So  much  of  our  nature,  then,  must  be  excluded 
from  the  moral  sphere ;  of  so  much  neither  sin  nor  its  opposite 
can  be  predicated.  If  we  suppose,  now,  the  soul  added,  at  the 
same  moment  that  we  have  the  real  man  in  the  added  quantity 
we  have  also  a  new  and  different  kind  of  being,  who,  by  the 
possession  of  certain  qualities — intelligence,  conscience,  and 
will — passes  out  from  the  dominion  of  causation  into  the  plane 
of  the  supernatural,  or  freedom.  We  have  a  creature  that  rises 
above  the  condition  of  a  thing  that  is  under  the  law  of  neces¬ 
sity  into  the  dignity  of  a  person  that  acts  from  freedom,  keep¬ 
ing  or  breaking  law  as  he  wills.  The  first,  or  animal  part, 

^  6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


being  under  the  law  of  necessity,  cannot  transgress ;  the  second 
part,  under  the  law  of  freedom,  may.  Here,  then,  is  the  sole 
sphere  of  the  moral— in  the  soul.  Sin  or  its  opposite,  if  they 
exist  at  all,  must  be  predicated  of  this  part  of  man — which  is, 
indeed,  man;  here  it  must  have  its  seat  and  throne;  and  its 
existence  must,  also,  be  found  in  that  which  is  a  result  of  this 
being  exercising  its  powers  in  a  free  way.  That  in  the  soul, 
even,  which  exists  as  a  nature,  determined  by  causation,  will  be 
as  much  out  of  the  sphere  of  moral  law  as  any  other  nature, 
since  moral  law  is  the  law  which  obtains  over  a  free  being  in 
that  wherein  he  is  free,  and  not  in  that  wherein  he  is  under  the 
sway  of  the  law  of  necessity. 

Let  us  dwell  for  a  little  in  the  consideration  of  this  important 
point :  Precisely  what  in  the  soul  is  to  be  accounted  as  under 
the  sway  of  moral  law  ? 

It  will  aid  us  here  if  we  keep  in  mind  the  radical  distinction 
between  natural  and  moral  law ;  or,  at  least,  precisely  what  we 
mean  by  moral  law. 

The  phrase  “moral  law”  has  a  well-defined  sense.  It  signi¬ 
fies  simply  the  law  of  Grod  for  the  government  of  free  beings  in 
the  matters  in  which  they  are  free.  Natural  law  is  that  system 
of  order  which  is  ordained  for  the  government  of  things,  and 
which  is  enforced  by  a  power  ab  extra.  Moral  law  is  that  sys¬ 
tem  of  order  which  is  ordained  for  the  government  of  wills,  and 
which  is  not  enforced  by  power  but  by  moral  considerations, 
and  which  the  free  being  ought  to  obey,  but  may  or  may  not. 
We  are  not  predicating  of  the  contents  of  moral  law,  but  of  that 
which  makes  it  moral  law — in  the  absence  of  which  it  is  not 
moral  law.  The  source  of  the  two  laws  in  the  diverse  realms  is 
the  same ;  they  differ  but  in  kind.  “  The  plant,  the  animal,  or 
the  star  did  not  choose  for  itself  its  law,  but  received  it  from 
that  creative  Power  which  gave  it  being ;  and  it  is  because  that 
Power  is  Omnipotence  that  the  laws  it  has  implanted  work  with 


l 


What  is  Sm? 


39 


undeviating  certainty.  The  same  holds  true  of  man  and  his 
order  of  life,  only  with  this  difference,  that  in  his  case  that 
order  is  one  of  liberty,  because  it  is  a  moral  order.”* 

“We  could  not  distinguish  the  moral  law  from  the  law  of 
nature,  not  even  in  its  most  general  fundamental  outlines,  with¬ 
out  fixing  its  exclusive  relation  to  self-determining  existences. 
Accordingly,  no  one  thinks  of  applying  the  notion  of  the  trans¬ 
gression  of  law  to  animals ;  and  even  to  children  we  cannot 
apply  the  notion  so  long  as  the  will  and,  therewith,  the  moral 
law  exist  in  them  only  jootentic t,  at  any  rate  only  in  a  potential 
sense.  J ust  as  little  is  one  able  to  violate  the  moral  law  if, 
after  the  exercise  of  his  conscious  self-determination,  its  constant 
connection  be  again  entirely  broken,  though  by  some  physical 
cause.  We  say  by  some  physical  cause,  for  if  it  be  only  the 
unrestrained  power  of  the  lower  impulses  which  have  for  a 
moment  broken  loose  the  validity  of  the  requirement  of  the  law 
would  not  in  the  least  be  lessened.  For  the  will  ought  to  be 
master  in  its  own  house,  and  the  vehemence  of  the  lower  im¬ 
pulses  is  just  that  which  ought  not  to  be.  But  in  the  presence 
of  the  power  of  natural  necessity  the  imperative  of  the  law  has 
no  significance.  It  severs  that  connection  in  insanity,  as  well 
as  also  in  cases  of  fever,  although  only  in  its  highest  stages, 
when  delirium  is  present.  In  such  conditions  the  concealed 
evil  of  the  heart  may  be  revealed,  but  sin  cannot  be  com¬ 
mitted.”  f 

The  point  raised  here  is  one  of  very  great  moment  If  moral 
law  relate  alone  to  the  conduct  of  free  beings,  and  if  sin  consist 
in  its  transgression,  and  that  alone,  then  all  sin  must  consist 
simply  in  action.  If  the  idea  of  moral  law  be  wider,  as  com¬ 
prehending  states  of  the  soul  existing  antecedent  to  action,  sin 
may  be  predicated  when  no  action  is  supposed.  This  is  the 

*  Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  p.  24. 

f  Muller,  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin ,  vol.  i,  pp.  39,  40. 


40 


Studies  in  Theology. 


precise  point  around,  which,  a  most  exasperated  controversy  has 
raged  for  ages.  It  is  the  point  to  which,  more  than  any  other, 
attention  should  be  given  in  attempting  to  solve  the  most  diffi¬ 
cult  problem  in  theology.  It  has  never  been  overlooked  by 
great  writers  in  theology,  but  alone  in  the  invaluable  treatises 
of  Ullmann  and  Muller  has  it  been  allowed  its  real  moment. 
In  the  discussion  of  the  several  theories  of  original  sin  it 
will  recur,  but  a  distinct  examination  of  the  point  here  may 
aid  us. 

Those  who  hold  that  the  moral  law  is  limited  to  the  simple 
matter  of  the  conduct  of  free  beings  in  the  cases  wherein  they 
are  free,  and  is  nothing  other  than  an  ordination  of  the  divine 
will  prescribing  authoritatively  what  they  ought  to  do  or  not  do, 
do  not  understand  it  to  be  a  rule  touching  only  outward  action,  or 
concrete  action.  They  believe,  rather,  that  the  law  claim  pene¬ 
trates  to  the  innermost  sanctuary  of  personality ;  that  it  lays  its 
imperative  upon  the  central  power  of  the  soul,  the  will,  and 
requires  that  its  most  primary  movements  should  be  according 
to  its  commands ;  that  obedience  or  transgression  is  complete  in 
the  will  act,  without  external  expression. 

But  here  they  stop,  holding  it  to  be  impossible  to  pursue 
the  idea  of  transgression  to  a  deeper  genesis  than  that  of  the 
primary  will  movement ;  to  find  it  back  in  an  antecedent  nature , 
more  primitive  than  moral  action.  They  do  not  deny  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  a  back-lying  moral  nature — even  a  fallen  and  degen¬ 
erate  nature — but  they  deny  that  a  nature,  as  such,  can  be  a 
transgressor,  or  morally  culpable,  or  that  a  person  can  be  held 
for  the  nature  in  which,  without  personal  agency,  he  finds  him¬ 
self  swathed.  They  hold  that  moral  law  relates  wholly  to  per¬ 
sons,  and  is  exhausted  in  defining  what  they  must  do,  or  be  as 
the  result  of  their  doing,  and  deny  that  so  far  as  it  is  their  law 
or  imperative  it  can  have  any  relation  to  the  nature  which  they 
receive,  logically  before,  but  really  together  with,  personality. 


What  is  Sin? 


41 


The  person,  they  hold,  cannot  be  amenable  to  law  until  he 
exists  as  a  person,  and  so  cannot  be  a  transgressor  prior  to  that 
time,  or  in  the  nature  which  he  receives,  or  any  condition  of 
that  nature,  of  which  he  is  in  no  sense  cause ;  but  a  nature  or 
being  must  be  supposed  as  antecedent  to  personality  or  contem¬ 
poraneous  with  it ;  and  as  it  is  wholly  given,  without  any  act 
of  the  creature  who  receives  it,  it  cannot  bring  with  it  sin  to  the 
passive  recipient  Once  more,  they  hold  that,  as  moral  law  is 
a  law  to  free  beings  in  the  matters  in  which  they  are  free,  it 
cannot  relate  to  what  is  given  in  their  nature,  as  in  that  they 
are  not  free  ;  it  supposes  them  to  be  free,  and  under  law,  before 
thev  can  be  transgressors. 

TV e  have  seen  already  by  extracts  from  Ullmann  and  Muller 
that  this  is  their  view ;  and  yet,  as  will  be  seen  directly,  they 
seem  to  contradict  this. 

The  same  remark  is  true  of  Professor  Shedd  and  the  great 
Edwards,  as  will  appear  further  on  when  we  come  to  examine 
their  theories  of  original  sin. 

In  the  following  extract  it  will  appear  that  Ullmann  sought  a 

deeper  seat  of  sin  than  separate  acts  of  the  will.  He  says : 

“Everything  depends  on  the  relation  of  man  to  the  law  and  its 

principle,  on  the  one  hand  in  his  inmost  affections,  and  on  the 

other  in  the  sum  total  of  those  outward  actions  which  result 

therefrom.  And  the  relation  can,  in  reality,  be  only  one  of  two 

kinds ;  either  it  is  a  relation  of  self-renunciation  and  obedience 

or  it  is  a  relation  of  resistance  and  disobedience.  All  good 

springs  from  the  former,  all  evil  from  the  latter.  But  the  one 

as  well  as  the  other  is  a  fundamental  fact  of  the  moral  life,  which 

must  exist  before  the  separate  acts  of  will  and  separate  deeds  of 

good  can  in  either  case  take  place.  In  this  connection  sin  is 

defined  as  disobedience.  The  disobedience  is  not,  however, 

merely  in  the  external  action  and  against  the  external  precept ; 

it  is  disobedience  in  the  heart  and  against  the  whole  law,  and 
4  6 


f 


42  Studies  in  Theology. 

it  is  a  spirit  of  disobedience  by  virtue  of  an  internal  opposi¬ 
tion  to  the  principle  expressed  by  the  moral  law.”  * 

The  reader,  by  referring  to  the  pages  immediately  following 
those  from  which  we  quote  in  the  above  work,  will  find  the 
*  author’s  views  more  fully  drawn  out.  It  is  obvious  that  he  con¬ 
ceives  a  sin  existing  anterior  to  every  separate  act  of  will, 
in  what  he  calls  a  more  fundamental  act  of  the  soul,  in  its  resist¬ 
ance  of  God — withdrawal  from  him,  and  acceptance  of  selfish¬ 
ness  as  the  law  of  life. 

But  it  is  not  less  obvious,  and  is  what  he  by  necessity  con¬ 
stantly  admits,  that  the  sin  which  antedates  each  separate  act  of 
will  was  itself  an  act  of  the  jDerson — the  act  of  renouncing  God 
and  enthroning  self ;  an  act  so  fundamental  as  to  be  the  parent 
of  all  after  action.  He  does  not  escape  from  his  own  many-times- 
repeated  position — that  sin  is  an  act  of  recusancy  of  the  will 
against  law,  and  not  a  quality  of  a  nature  prior  to  action. 

Muller  treats  this  subject  exhaustively,  and  must  be  read  to 
get  any  just  idea  of  the  vast  learning  and  masterly  ability  with 
which  he  conducts  the  discussion.  He  is  many  times  obscure, 
and  by  as  sluggish  minds  as  the  writer  of  these  reflections  needs 
to  be  read  many  times  and  with  great  patience.  If — as  he  does 
— Miiller  finds  a  sinfulness  infecting  humanity  prior  to  action, 
and  lying  back  in  the  nature  itself,  it  is  not,  as  it  seems  to  be, 
a  contradiction  of  the  teachings  already  quoted,  that  all  sin  is  a 
transgression  of  law  by  a  will  action,  since  he  holds  that  the 
sin  which  attaches  to  souls  when  born,  and  anterior  to  any  act 
as  human  persons,  is  not  properly  a  sin  of  nature,  but  a  sin 
which  transpired  in  a  former  state  of  existence.  Upon  this 
ground  alone  (that  of  the  prior  existence  of  souls)  does  he  allow 
of  sin  in  the  just-bom  being. 

Indeed,  if  we  correctly  understand  this  great  author,  his  la¬ 
bored  discussion  is  intended  to  set  forth  the  following  points : 

*  Sinlessness  of  Jesus,  pp.  22,  23. 


6 


What  is  Sin? 


43 


First,  that  moral  law  is  law  for  the  government  of  moral  beings 
in  matters  of  action — action  including  in  it  the  idea  of  primary 
decisions  of  the  will,  all  subsequent  separate  choices,  and  that 
state  of  the  soul  called  disposition,  or  habitual  tendence,  which 
arises  from  a  prior  fundamental  act  of  the  will.  His  idea  of 
will  is  thus  expressed:  “In  the  degree  in  which  our  spirit  is 
able  by  conscious  self-determination  to  determine  its  own  con¬ 
dition  and  its  influence  over  other  beings,  in  so  far  it  is  will. 
The  mere  moment  of  self-determination  does  not  suffice  for  the 
notion  of  will,  for  this  in  a  certain  sense  we  must  ascribe  to 
unintelligent  creatures,  to  the  organic  life  of  nature,  by  virtue 
of  its  development  from  its  own  principle.  Self-determination 
only  thereby  becomes  will,  by  its  being  a  conscious  determina¬ 
tion  ;  that  its  subject  (the  subject  of  \  self-determination  or  the 
self-determining  subject)  is  able  previously  to  present  to  its 
mind  that  which  it  brings  to  reality  by  its  self-determination. 
Accordingly,  there  is  not  immediately  expressed  in  that  deeper 
truth  of  our  nature  being  (Sein),  that  which  is,  but  the  obligation 
of  being  (Seinsollen),  that  which  ought  to  be,  more  strictly 
speaking,  an  obligation  (sollen)  which  is  determined  to  pass 
into  being,  but  which,  so  long  as  it  is  in  the  shape  of  transition 
into  being,  consequently  not  yet  being,  does  not  cease  to  appear 
in  our  consciousness  as  obligation,  as  the  rule  of  life,  as  a  neces¬ 
sity  [imperative]  determining  our  will.”* 

“This  practical  truth,  absolutely  regulating,  and  yet  not 
coercing  the  will,  is  the  moral  law.'1  f 

These  are  designed  to  be  strictly  scientific  statements,  and  are 
of  value  as  laying  down  these  fundamental  positions :  first,  that 
the  will  is  the  self-conscious,  self-determining  power ;  second, 
that  it  presents  to  the  mind  beforehand  that  which  it  deter¬ 
mines  to  bring  into  actuality,  and  so  is  self-conscious  of  what 
it  is  going  to  do ;  third,  that  the  moral  law  is  present  with  it  as 
*  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin ,  vol.  i,  p.  28.  f  Ibid.,  p.  29. 


6 


44 


Studies  in  Theolog-y. 


'  an  imperative,  imparting  the  sense  of  obligation  before  and 
during  the  process  of  its  action.  So  that,  in  case  of  transgres¬ 
sion,  sin  arises  as  a  premeditated  violation  of  the  moral  law. 

I  subjoin  here  a  number  of  definitions  intended  to  be  as 
nearly  scientific  as  possible,  and  from  authors  of  the  most  or¬ 
thodox  type,  on  the  particular  subject  set  forth  in  their  defini¬ 
tions  : 

“  1.  As  to  its  formal  aspect,  sin  is  any  want  of  conformity 
with  or  transgression  of  the  law  of  God.  It  is  anomic  unlaw¬ 
fulness. 

“  2.  As  to  its  essential  nature,  it  is  moral  unlikeness  to  God — 
or,  rather,  the  reverse  of  his  likeness. 

“  3.  Its  origin  is,  in  every  instance,  traceable  to  the  criminal 
apostasy  of  a  nature  made  in  God's  image,  and  clothed  with 
freedom  to  continue  in  that  likeness  or  depart  from  it. 

“4.  As  to  its  habitual  form,  it  is  a  depraved  principle  in  the 
nature;  hostile  to  all  good,  and  prone  to  all  evil;  enmity  to 
God  and  his  law;  and  delighting  in  whatever  is  hateful  to 
him. 

“5.  In  action  it  is  transgression,  actively  assailing  alike  the 
authority  of  God  and  the  rights  of  fellow-creatures.'5  * 

“We  regard  the  will  as  the  seat  of  all  virtue  and  wee,  .  t  . 
The  morality  in  the  will  begins  at  the  place  at  which  conscience 
interposes.  ...  In  short,  human  virtue  consists  in  the  will 
obeying  the  conscience  as  its  law  appointed  by  God,  and  vice 
consists  in  the  will  setting  the  law  of  conscience  aside  and  pre¬ 
ferring  some  other  good  to  what  conscience  declares  to  be  the 
morally  good.”f 

“We  would  now  affirm  the  all-important  principle  that  noth¬ 
ing  is  moral  or  immoral  which  is  not  voluntary.  We  have 
often  been  struck  with  writers  upon  moral  science,  in  that,  even 

*  Elohim  Revealed ,  p.  259. 
f  McCosh,  Divine  Government ,  pp.  309,  310. 

6 


What  is  Sin? 


45 


though  professing  a  view  or  an  argument  altogether  elemen¬ 
tary,  they  seldom  come  formally  or  ostensibly  forth  with  this 
principle.”  “We  think  it  for  the  advantage  of  our  own  sub¬ 
ject  that  it  should  receive  a  different  treatment;  that  it  should 
be  announced,  and  with  somewhat  of  the  pomp  and  circum¬ 
stance,  too,  of  a  first  principle,  and  have  the  distinction  given 
to  it,  not  of  a  tacit,  but  of  a  proclaimed,  axiom  in  moral  sci¬ 
ence.”  This  passage  from  Chalmers  is  quoted  by  McCosh  as 
his  own  view.* 

“Bv  sin  either  that  condition  of  the  nature  of  a  man,  from 
which,  as  from  a  constant  source,  the  actual  opposition  of  his 
life  to  the  divine  law  proceeds ;  or,  we  understand  by  it,  this 
opposition  to  the  divine  law  itself.  The  former  of  these  is 
habitual  sinfulness,  the  latter  actual  sin.  In  life  the  two  are 
inseparably  connected;  habitual  sinfulness  expresses  itself  in 
actual  sin ;  actual  sin  springs  from  habitual  sinfulness,  conse¬ 
quently  for  both  state  and  act  we  use  a  common  expres¬ 
sion.”  f 

“  This  subjective  moment  is  immediately  given  in  the  very 
nature  of  sin.  But  it  characterizes  as  sin  whatever  in  the  life 
of  a  self-determining  being  is  found  contradictory  to  the  moral 
law,  without  troubling  itself  as  to  the  origin  of  such  an  element 
in  the  individual,  or  about  its  particular  relation  to  the  moral 
consciousness  of  its  subject,  or  the  stage  of  its  development 
and  degree  of  its  momentary  activity.  .  .  . 

“  In  order,  however,  to  determine  more  fully  the  relation  of  evil 
to  the  moral  law  we  have  still  a  threefold  question  to  answer. 
First  of  all,  is  everything  which  is  evil  really  a  violation  of  the 
moral  law  ?  or,  strictly  speaking,  does  the  moral  law  merely 
regulate  the  conduct ,  and  not  the  disposition,  the  abiding  state  of 
the  inner  life  in  general  ?  In  the  second  place,  is  evil  only  that 
which  opposes  the  law,  or  also  that  which  does  not  yet  perfectly 
*  Divine  Government ,  p.  310.  f  Sinlessness  of  Jesics,  p.  45. 


46 


Studies  in  Theology. 


correspond  to  the  requirement  of  the  law?  And,  lastly,  is  not 
perhaps  the  law,  and  the  consciousness  of  law,  mucli  rather  the 
consequence  of  evil  than,  according  to  the  above  determination 
of  its  notion,  its  presupposition  ?  ”  * 

This  putting  brings  the  subject  before  us  in  complete  full¬ 
ness.  Quoting  approvingly  from  Schleiermacher,  the  author 
sums  his  views  on  the  first  question  in  these  words :  “If  the 
law  as  moral  contains  a  requirement,  the  imperative  form  is 
essentially  proper  to  it,  in  so  far  as  it  addresses  itself  to  the 
will,  in  order  to  its  being  carried  out  in  the  life,  and  it  only 
becomes  a  resolution  of  the  will,  primarily,  of  course,  by  the 
automatism  of  the  will.  According  to  this,  while  the  act,  which 
of  course  cannot  here  be  regarded  in  a  limited  external  manner, 
is  the  primary  object  of  the  requirement  of  law,  it  follows  that 
everything  in  the  life  of  man,  which  essentially  springs  out  of 
his  act,  must  be  its  secondary  object  .  .  .  The  law  regulates 
not  merely  the  conduct  of  man,  but  also  his  being ,  as  it  proceeds 
from  the  inward  act ,  the  disposition  of  his  mind,  which  is  always 
regarded,  when  rightly  conceived  of,  as  essentially  possessing  a 
fixed  habitual  tendency  of  the  will ;  indeed,  the  very  move¬ 
ments  and  conditions  of  the  mind,  the  inclinations  and  disin¬ 
clinations  of  the  soul,  are  regulated  by  the  law,  in  so  far  as 
these  are  redetermined  by  the  established  tendency  of  the  will. 
And  it  also,  without  contradiction,  essentially  belongs  to  moral 
perfection  that  these  inward  and  abiding  elements  of  life  should 
be  harmoniously  arranged,  which  surely  no  one  will  wish  to  find 
in  the  mere  legality  of  the  individual  act  as  such.  If  now  there 
is  nothing  in  the  notion  of  law  to  prevent  its  being  directed  to 
the  abiding  moral  condition,  we  may  quite  generally  denote  it, 
when  regarded  according  to  the  purity  of  its  notion,  as  the  rep¬ 
resentation  of  the  moral  idea  in  the  imperative  form.”f 

*  Muller,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin ,  vol.  i,  pp.  40,  42,  43. 

f  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  pp.  44,  45.  See  also  the  footnotes  of  those  pages. 


What  is  Sin? 


47 


The  second  point  raised  is,  if  possible,  more  important ;  con¬ 
ducts  us  to  a  still  deeper  deep :  Does  evil  denote  that  only 
which  positively  contradicts  the  law,  or  that  also  which  fails  to 
satisfy  the  full  claims  of  the  law  ? 

u  The  moral  law,  regarded  in  its  true  light,  requires  of  us 
nothing  less  than  perfection.  Is,  then,  everything  which  is  less 
than  this  perfection  required  by  the  law  to  be  regarded  as 
moral  evil?  If  we  look  at  the  question  generally  it  is  mani¬ 
festly  the  same  as  when  we  ask,  Are  the  notions  purity  from 
evil  (moral  integrity)  and  moral  perfection  identical  ?  In  this 
we,  of  course,  presuppose  that  we  can  only  speak  of  moral  in¬ 
tegrity  in  relation  to  creatures  possessing  a  moral  nature.  To 
the  mere  creatures  of  nature,  as  possessed  of  no  moral  being, 
one  can  just  as  little  ascribe  virtue  as  vice.”  * 

The  essence  of  moral  action  is  that  it  is  an  act  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  a  law  known.  Hence  intelligent  beings  only  are  sub¬ 
jects  of  moral  law,  and  intelligent  beings  who  are  able  to  dis¬ 
cern  obligation,  oughtness.  Moral  action  cannot  be  predicated 
of  an  idiot,  certainly  not  more  of  an  infant.  Then  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  acting  against  its  law  ethically  do  not  exist  in  infancy. 
That  free  and  fundamental  act  of  responsible  choice  of  its  end 
cannot,  during  this  period  of  irresponsible  life,  take  place; 
then  it  cannot  sin.  To  pretend  that  an  infant  can  sin  in  the 
early  stages  of  infancy  is  a  monstrosity  of  conception  only 
transcended  by  the  other  supposition  that  it  can  inherit  sin. 

A  peculiarity  of  man  was,  he  was  put  on  trial.  It  was  not  so 
with  any  other  terrestrial  creature.  What  precisely  do  we  mean 
by  this?  Every  creature  save  man  was  so  constituted  and 
posited  that  its  welfare  was  not  made  dependent  on  itself,  on 
any  law  which  it  might  obey  or  disobey.  Its  nature  dominated 
its  end.  Man  was  the  solitary  exception  to  this  rule.  It  was 
possible  to  him  to  miss  his  end.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that 

*  Muller,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Shi,  vol.  i,  p.  58. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


the  deepest  and  truest  moment  of  sin  is  “missing  the  mark.” 
Whether  he  should  reach  it  was  made  absolutely  to  depend 
upon  himself.  The  event  was  suspended  upon  his  own  free 
act.  He  was  put  on  trial  under  a  definite  test.  Weal  or  woe, 
in  the  deepest  and  highest  significance,  was  put  in  his  power. 
Which  should  be,  in  the  event,  an  act  of  his  was  to  determine. 
The  period  of  the  trial  is  denoted  probation,  a  time  in  which 
and  by  which  the  eternal  issue  was  to  be  determined.  The  is¬ 
sue  of  destiny  was  suspended  on  personal  character.  Man  was 
thus  alone  the  maker  of  his  own  fate.  It  was  a  trial  determi¬ 
native  of  character  and  consequent  destiny — perhaps  nothing 
more.  Failure  would  deprive  him  of  innocence,  separate  him 
from  the  communion  of  God,  subject  him  to  utter  and  remedi¬ 
less  death,  would  drive  him  from  the  bliss  and  happiness  of 
Eden,  and  send  him  forth,  an  outcast  from  God,  to  a  gloomy 
immortality.  Fidelity  would  ennoble  innocence  into  holiness, 
and  make  him  an  immortal  heir  of  riches  of  glory  immeasur¬ 
able  and  inconceivable.  It  was  a  vast  issue,  and  himself  was, 
by  a  free  act,  to  determine  it.  It  is  appalling  to  think  of  the 
responsibility. 

Fundamental  to  man  as  a  moral  being  is  that  great  peculiarity 
of  his  nature  that  he  is,  so  far  forth  as  he  is  moral,  endowed 
with  absolute  freedom.  This  freedom  resides  alone  in  his  will. 
Morality,  therefore,  can  be  predicated  only  of  his  will,  and  of 
other  things  in  him  so  far  as  they  are  under  the  government  of 
will.  This  point  is  fully  elucidated  in  the  portion  of  this  work 
which  treats,  of  sin. 

As  will  is  so  important  a  factor,  in  fact  the  very  center  and 
pivotal  point  in  the  moral  being,  it  becomes  us  to  examine  it 
more  fully  here.  What  is  it  precisely  that  we  mean  by  will, 
and  by  absolute  freedom  of  will  ? 

The  spirit  of  man  is  essentially  man ;  when  we  predicate  of 

it  we  predicate  of  him.  Its  functions  are  intellection,  sensi- 

6 


What  is  Sin? 


49 


tivity,  will.  It  knows,  it  feels,  it  wills.  These  are  names  for 
discriminated  forms  of  its  activity.  Under  the  first  form  are 
grouped  the  powers  of  knowing,  as  perception,  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  intuition,  understanding,  reason,  memory,  imagination. 
Under  the  second  are  grouped  all  forms  of  feeling,  as  affections, 
passions,  emotions.  The  classifications  need  not  be  further  ex¬ 
tended  here.  This  second  group  of  activities  depends  on  the 
first  for  the  conditions  of  their  existence  and  expression.  The 
intellect  must  present  an  object  before  feeling  can  awaken  in 
any  form  except  the  purely  animal  forms.  The  third  group  of 
activities  takes  the  generic  name  will.  As  the  second  awaits 
the  action  of  the  first  and  springs  forth  unbidden,  so  the  third 
requires  the  antecedence  of  both  the  first  and  second  as  con¬ 
dition  of  its  exercise. 

It  is  of  the  third  that  we  now  treat.  What  do  we  mean  by 
will?  We  have  a  tolerably  definite  idea  of  what  we  mean  by 
knowing  and  feeling.  Have  we  as  definite  an  idea  of  what  we 
mean  by  will,  or  willing  ?  It  would  seem  that  we  should  have. 
There  should  be  no  more  obscurity  in  the  one  case  than  in  the 
others.  The  terms  describe  equally  common  forms  of  activity. 
“I  know,”  “I  feel,”  “I  will,”  are  modes  of  speech  employed 
with  equal  frequency,  and  with  equal  consciousness  that  we 
employ  them  understandingly.  There  is  no  more  sense  of  ob¬ 
scurity  in  the  one  case  than  in  either  of  the  others. 

What  we  mean  by  will  is  the  power  we  find  ourselves 
endowed  with  of  self-determination.  The  power  applies  in 
everv  case  in  which  we  are  able  to  decide  what  we  would  do  if 

t/ 

not  restrained  bv  external  forces,  and  its  act  is  the  act  of  decid- 
ing.  It  is  a  purely  subjective  power,  and  its  act  is  always  a 
subjective  act.  The  external  effect  is  not  the  will  act,  but 
result  of  it.  Every  intelligent  external  act  is  sequent  of  the 
previous  subjective  act,  and  could  not  be  without  it.  The  pri¬ 
mary  will  act  is  election,  or  choice,  or  decision  to  an  end,  the 

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Studies  in  Theology. 


determination  of  the  self  to  an  object.  The  second  form  of  mil 
action  is  the  executive  volition,  or  putting  forth  of  power  to 
effectuate  the  choice;  to  possess  or  do  what  is  decided  on.  First 
there  is  presented  an  object  or  end,  and  it  is  accepted  by  the 
will,  that  is,  determined  on;  second,  the  effort,  or  executive 
volition,  is  made  to  accomplish  it.  The  two  acts  are  differen¬ 
tiable  in  fact  and  ordinarily  in  time,  and  always  logically  as  an¬ 
tecedent  and  sequent — never  in  the  reverse  order.  The  moral 
quality  is  complete  in  the  first  act. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  there  is  moral  quality  in  every 
will  act,  but  only  in  those  which  relate  to  ends  which  are  right 
or  wrong.  A  man  chooses  to  sit  or  stand ;  to  eat  or  abstain ;  to 
converse  or  be  silent.  These  may  be  right  or  wrong,  or  they 
may  be  indifferent. 

Rightness  or  wrongness  of  an  action  depends  on  the  existence 
or  nonexistence  of  law  concerning  it.  If  commanded  by  right¬ 
eous  authority  it  is  right,  and  the  opposite  is  wrong.  If  not 
commanded — that  is,  not  required  or  forbidden — it  is  indif¬ 
ferent.  By  law  or  command  is  not  meant  merely  verbal  rules 
of  action  communicated,  but  all  ethical  imperatives  emanating 
from  the  reason  and  conscience;  divine  laws  revealed  in  the 
mind  itself  and  enforced  directly  by  the  ethical  reason,  or  sense 
of  oughtness  or  ought-notness. 


In  all  cases  in  which  there  is  a  law  or  command,  whether 
directly  and  supernaturally  given  or  emanating  from  the  ethical 
reason,  the  requirement  is  primarily  on  the  will ;  and  it  requires 
that  the  subject  should  choose  to  obey  the  command  and  should 
in  the  resulting  act  obey  it,  or  do  what  it  requires ;  and  obedi¬ 
ence  or  nonobedience  renders  the  subject  righteous  or  sinful. 

In  order  that  he  may  acquire  the  quality  of  righteousness  or 
sinfulness  he  must  act  as  a  will  under  law ;  and  he  must  be  ab¬ 
solutely  free  in  his  act — that  is,  it  must  be  properly  his  act, 
What  do  we  mean  by  free  ?  There  is  no  point  in  theology 


What  is  Sin  ? 


51 


and  metaphysical  philosophy  about  which  there  has  been  more 
debate  than  this — none  of  greater  practical  moment ;  and  yet, 
we  may  venture  to  assert,  none  of  which  consciousness  more 
explicitly  affirms.  There  are  things  with  respect  to  which  we 
know  we  are  not  free,  and  things  with  respect  to  which  we 
know  we  are  free.  When  we  so  predicate  we  understand  per¬ 
fectly  what  we  mean.  The  atom  is  not  free  when  it  moves  by 
attraction.  Water  is  not  free  when  it  rises  to  its  level  or  flows 
in  its  channel.  The  eye  is  not  free  when  objects  are  painted 
on  its  retina.  The  nerve  of  sensation  is  not  free  when  it  feels  a 
blow.  The  appetite  is  not  free  when  it  covets  its  object.  The 
mind  is  not  free  when  it  perceives  a  difference  between  the 
beautiful  and  deformity-— when  it  affirms  opposition  between 
right  and  wrong — when  its  consciousness  asserts  that  the  right 
ought  to  be  and  the  wrong  not— -when  it  perceives  what  im¬ 
pinges  on  its  sensory  organ,  or  is  conscious  of  its  present 
thought  or  feeling.  Why,  in  all  these  and  ten  thousand  other 
cases,  do  we  assert  the  absence  of  freedom  ?  What  is  it  that 
we  mean  ?  Simply  this,  that  such  is  the  order  of  nature  that 
these  things  are  necessary ;  that  is,  cannot  be  avoided  by  the 
things  themselves;  they  have  no  power  to  the  opposite;  they 
are  under  domination  of  force  or  power,  external  or  internal ; 
they  have  no  choice  or  power  of  choice  in  the  premises. 

When  we  affirm  that  man  is  free  we  mean  that  in  the  matters 
in  which  he  is  free,  and  so  far  as  he  is  free,  he  has  what  these 
things  have  not — power  over,  or  election  of  his  end ;  that  is, 
whenever  he  acts  as  a  free  will,  or  in  freedom,  he  possesses  the 
power  to  act,  not  only  as  he  does,  but  differently ;  that  there  is 
nothing  in  his  constitution,  or  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  or 
any  external  power,  which  dominates  his  act,  but  it  is  freely 
determined  by  himself,  with  the  full  consciousness  that  at  the 
instant  the  determination  might  have  been  different. 

It  is  not  meant  that  he  is  not  susceptible  of  influence  or 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


motive  to  act.  He  cannot,  indeed,  act  rationally  without  mo¬ 
tives  addressed  both  to  his  intellect  and  affections.  This  is  one 
characteristic  differencing  him  from  other  things.  They  do  not 
feel  or  perceive  motives  which  influence  their  decisions,  but 
are  acted  on  as  machines.  He  is  addressed,  and  is  conscious  of 
influence,  both  of  reasons  and  desires,  but  he  is  conscious  also 
that  when  he  yields  to  them  he  exercises  a  free  and  sovereign 
power,  and  is,  therefore,  responsible.  It  is  precisely  this  fact 
which  makes  him  a  moral  being,  and  which  makes  it  impossible 
that  beings  wanting  this  power  should  be  moral. 

It  is  not  implied  that  every  act  of  will,  either  as  choice  or 
executive  volition,  is  free,  but  that  any  act  of  will  that  is  unfree 
lacks  ethical  quality. 

The  Adam,  a  moral  being,  was,  as  such,  placed  under  law. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  law  was  the  common  law  per¬ 
vasive  of  all  moral  being ;  inclusive  of  all  duty  that  might  arise 
in  the  history  of  his  immortal  existence. 

For  his  immediate  trial,  however,  it  was  reduced  to  a  single 
command,  obedience  to  which  would  have  contained  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  all  obedience,  that  of  implicit  submission  to  righteous 
authority;  disobedience  to  which,  on  the  other  hand,  would 
have  contained  the  germ  of  all  sin,  self-will.  We  accept  as 
literal  history  the  account  given  by  Moses.  The  case  is  cer¬ 
tainly  not  clear,  but  the  preponderance  of  the  argument,  to  our 
thinking,  favors  that  view.  To  those  who  may  be  curious  to 
extend  research  on  the  subject  an  endless  number  of  writers 
will  be  found  accessible  in  any  extensive  theological  library. 
As  the  discussion  we  have  to  offer  will  not  be  affected  in  either 
event,  whether  it  is  literal  or  allegorical,  we  do  not  deem  it 
useful  to  pursue  the  examination.  Whether  an  allegory  or  a 
literal  statement,  it  asserts  the  same  fact,  that  he  was  law-bound, 
or  under  law.  Of  that  there  can  be  no  dispute.  The  nature 
which  he  has  transmitted  to  us  declares  it.  In  addition  to  the 


What  is  Sin? 


53 


natural  law,  which,  held  him  in  common  with  all  other  beings  in 
its  grip  of  inexorable  necessity,  he  found  himself  under  another 
law,  dictating  forms  of  activity  but  not  forcing  them  ;  saying, 
“Thou  shall”  This  law  held  out  rewards  and  penalties  to 
induce  obedience,  but  had  no  compulsory  force.  It  was  so 
then  ;  it  is  so  now  ;  it  has  never  been  otherwise. 

It  is  sometimes  asked,  Why  was  the  Adam  made  so  as  to  be 
subject  to  temptation  and  liable  to  fall?  It  is  equivalent  to 
asking,  Why  was  he  made  a  moral  being  ?  since  to  be  a  moral 
being  is  to  be  under  a  law  which  the  subject  knows  by  com¬ 
mand  internally  or  externally  imparted  ;  a  law,  therefore,  which 
is  consciously  freely  kept,  and  may  be  broken,  and  to  the 
breach  of  which  he  is,  or  may  be,  conscious  of  an  inducement 
or  temptation.  This  point  will  be  fully  elaborated  when  we 
come  to  consider  specifically  the  origin  of  evil. 

Whence  arose  temptation?  In  the  actual  case  of  man  it 
arose  through  a  foreign  agency,  the  devil ;  he  using  an  inno¬ 
cent  creature  as  the  unconscious  instrument  of  his  act,  if  the 
history  is  to  be  interpreted  literally.  Whether  he  might  have 
exerted  a  direct  influence  upon  the  soul  of  the  unfallen,  or 
whether  he  now  does  on  the  souls  of  men,  we  are  not  informed. 
It  is  probably  true  that  his  wiles  are  always  exerted  through 
intermediates.  We  do  not  doubt  the  personality  of  the  tempter 
in  this  case,  or  that  there  is  a  spirit  of  evil  in  the  universe 
— the  devil ;  a  person  who,  by  reason  of  his  bad  preeminence, 
is  chief  and  prince  of  the  powers  of  darkness.  The  empire  of 
sin  is  composed  of  persons,  represented  in  the  Scriptures  as  a 
host  of  evil  beings,  consolidated  under  one  head  of  matchless 
malice — or,  if  not  of  greater  malice,  primus  inter  pares. 

There  are  those  who  doubt.  They  are  not  always  unchris¬ 
tian.  They  understand  the  many  scriptural  allusions  to  be, 
under  the  various  names,  devil,  serpent,  Satan,  etc.,  to  a  spirit  of 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


evil,  or  principle  of  evil,  existing — in  or  among  things — in 
nature.  Sin  is  a  personal  thing,  and  cannot  be  predicated  apart 
from  a  personal  being.  W e  see  no  reason  wh j  a  person,  oldest 
in  sin  and  chiefest  in  power  of  mischief,  may  not  be  alluded  to 
rather  than  an  abstract  principle,  and  especially  since  the  attri¬ 
butes  of  personality  are  constantly  ascribed.  There  are  many 
devils — there  is  one  chief. 

But,  while  we  accept  the  account  as  literal,  we  do  not  for  a 
moment  doubt  that  temptation  would  have  arisen  inevitably 
without  a  personal  tempter,  as  must  have  been  the  case  in  the 
first  instance  of  sin.  We  accept  the  presence  and  agency  of  a 
personal  devil  in  Eden  as  a  fact,  but  not  at  all  as  a  necessary 
condition  to  temptation.  His  presence  here,  as  everywhere, 
complicates  and  disturbs ;  is  an  impertinence  and  obtrusion. 
He  was  not  necessary  to  the  trial  progressing  in  Eden,  nor 
must  we  regard  his  presence  and  the  malicious  part  he  acted  as 
determining  the  sad  catastrophe.  Man  is  a  social  being,  and 
thus  one  becomes  a  tempter  of  another;  and,  as  his  trial 
is  to  determine  that  he  will  not  sin  under  any  temptation,  from 
any  quarter,  it  was  proper  that  he  should  be  subject  to  tempta¬ 
tion.  This  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  presence  of  the  tempter 
in  Eden ;  but  the  Adam  finds  no  palliation  for  his  act  in  the 
presence  of  Satanic  influence.  He  would  have  been  tempted, 
and,  and  we  doubt  not,  have  sinned,  had  no  devil  slimed  the 
beautiful  paradise  with  his  impure  presence  and  speech.  The 
elements  of  temptation  were  in  the  circumstances  and  nature  of 
the  Adam,  as  of  every  other  being  who  is  on  moral  trial.  The 
law  which  lays  its  command  on  a  free  being  suggests  its  own 
violation,  in  the  conscious  power  of  the  subject  to  disobey. 
This  is  especially  the  case  when  the  matter  of  the  command 
crosses  any  inclination  of  the  subject — prohibits  what,  but  for 
the  command,  would  be  for  any  reason  agreeable. 

The  command  laid  on  the  Adam  was  of  this  kind,  and  con- 


"What  is  Sin? 


55 


tainecl  a  germ  which,  of  necessity,  would  breed  struggle  in  his 
soul.  It  prohibited  the  enjoyment  of  a  fruit  that  was  agreeable 
to  his  palate,  which  he  could  not  behold  and  not  covet.  He 
was  required  to  deny  himself  of  that  which  his  nature  craved. 
His  desires  and  his  sense  of  obligation  necessarily  collided. 
To  feel  desire  was  to  be  tempted.  He  could  not  avoid  see¬ 
ing  in  the  fruit  a  seeming  good,  for  he  was  so  made  that  it 
must  appear  as  a  good ;  it  suited  his  nature — it  was  an  invol¬ 
untary  action — he  must  desire  it.  There  was  no  impropriety 
in  the  desire,  as  there  is  no  impropriety  in  anything  that  is 
natural  until  it  comes  into  collision  with  law.  The  law  super¬ 
venes  before  there  can  be  sin,  and  determines  what  shall  be  sin. 

"Where  there  is  no  law  there  is  no  transgression.” 

But,  it  is  said,  how  could  the  holy  Adam  have  a  desire  in 
contravention  of  the  command  or  of  duty  ?  We  answer,  The 
desire  was  not  in  contravention  of  duty.  It  was  not  his  duty 
not  to  desire.  Duty  has  no  place  as  regards  an  involuntary 
feeling.  The  imperative  was  not,  Thou  shalt  not  desire,  but, 
Thou  shalt  not  eat.  Duty  requires  the  control  of  the  impulses, 
not  their  nonaction  or  their  extinction.  The  ought  of  moral 
law  and  moral  consciousness  regards  the  use  of  a  nature,  not 
its  extinction  or  abrogation ;  imperates  the  exercise  or  restraint 
of  powers,  not  their  being  or  nonbeing. 

But,  yet  further,  it  is  said,  How  could  the  holy  Adam  yield 
to  desire  and  act  against  his  conviction  of  duty  ?  How  could 
the  holy  become  unholy  ?  How  could  the  good  tree  produce 
evil  fruit?  It  is  the  ages-old  question,  How  could  sin  find 
entrance  into  the  universe?  It  is  here,  and  in  some  way  it  did 
arise ;  otherwise  it  is  eternal.  Holding  the  view  that  it  is  not 
eternal,  and  not  a  product  of  divine  creation,  but  an  effect  or 
fact  having  its  origin  from  previously  sinless  creatures,  we  will 
try  to  answer  the  inquiry,  How  ? 

The  power  requisite  to  constitute  a  moral  being  is  power  of 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


free  action  in  the  presence  of  its  law — command ;  power  to  act 
with  or  against  the  command.  The  subject  must  be  absolutely 
free  in  the  matter  of  his  will  action.  If  constrained  from  with¬ 
out  it  is  not  he  that  acts,  but  the  constraining  force.  If  con¬ 
strained  from  within,  by  a  necessity  of  nature,  the  nature  being 
created  by  another,  the  included  constraint  is  imposed  by 
another ;  it  is  not  he  that  acts,  but  the  constraining  force.  The 
idea  of  freedom  is  excluded ;  we  have  a  necessary  agent,  and 
the  testimony  of  all  consciousness  is  that  there  can  be  no  respon¬ 
sibility — we  have  not  a  moral  being.  Freedom  does  not  imply 
absence  of  law,  or  absence  of  influence,  but  power  to  act  either 
against  or  with  any  law  or  any  influence  that  may  exist. 

As  the  law  imposed  upon  moral  beings  is,  by  supposition, 
the  most  reasonable  possible  law,  and  the  most  righteous  possi¬ 
ble  law,  and  a  law  the  obeying  of  which  will  conduct  to  the 
highest  possible  good — a  law,  therefore,  which,  if  known  as  to 
its  working,  must  make  the  strongest  appeal  to  the  reason,  the 
conscience,  and  self-interest — if  the  subject  be  free  he  must  be 
able  to  resist ;  that  is,  to  act  in  unreason — against  conscience, 
and  against  the  highest  form  of  self-love. 

Now,  if,  when  it  is  asked,  How  can  or  could  a  holy  being  act 
so  irrationally,  criminally,  and  ruinously?  be  meant,  What  good 
reason  can  be  assigned  for  his  so  acting?  we  answer,  No  good 
reason  can  be  assigned;  all  the  good  reasons  are  against  it. 
This  is  the  case  in  every  sin.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  any 
sin.  All  the  good  reasons  are  against  every  sin.  Sin  is  the 
sum  and  essence  of  unreason.  The  meaning  of  which  is,  a  free 
moral  being  may  act  against  the  best  reason  when  he  ought  to 
act  with  it ;  he  has  the  power  to  do  this,  and  the  use  of  that 
power  is  his  sin ;  it  is  the  very  essence  of  his  sin  that  he  degrades 
himself  thus ;  that  he  turns  away  from  his  royal  guides  to  follow 
and  obey  mean  and  base  lusts. 

Up  to  a  given  moment  the  being  is  guiltless  of  sin;  he  hears 


What  is  Sin? 


57 


and  follows  tlie  behests  of  right  reason  and  conscience.  But 
now  another  voice  clamors  to  be  heard ;  it  is  the  voice  of  pas¬ 
sion,  or  self-will ;  it  points  to  a  somewhat  which  awakens  desire, 
blow  there  is  a  conflict.  How  will  it  terminate?  Will  reason 
decide?  Will  conscience?  Will  the  right,  and  highest  good? 
So  one  would  think  it  ought  to  be,  but  it  will  not.  A  person 
will  determine  as  he  listeth,  and  will  render  no  reason  but  that 
so  he  determines.  If  we  attribute  his  determination  to  a  back- 
lying  nature  or  disposition  which  is  stronger  than  reason  or 
conscience,  and  make  it  the  source  of  the  sin,  it  is  at  the  same 
time  to  deny  freedom  to  the  subject  and  assign  sin  to  a  nature, 
and  find  its  origin  thus  in  God,  the  Creator  of  the  nature ;  by 
implication  to  give  it  the  most  holy  origin. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  sin  enters  the  universe  by  that  act  of  a 
sinless  or  innocent  being  in  which  he  renounces  his  allegiance 
to  God.  Up  to  the  initiation  of  the  act  he  is  innocent ;  in  the 
moment  of  it,  and  by  it,  he  passes  from  the  unfallen  Adam  to 
the  guilty  and  fallen  apostate. 

Then  sin  is  an  act  The  view  we  have  taken  is  certainly  in 
complete  harmony  with  the  account  given  by  Moses  of  the 
manner  in  which,  as  a  fact,  sin  did  enter  this  world.  It  was  an 
outgrowth  of  human  spontaneity,  a  product  of  human  will. 
The  tempted  Adam  yielded  when  he  ought  to  have  resisted ; 
sin  was  the  finished  fact 

The  conclusion  at  which  we  have  arrived  is  of  such  manifold 
importance  that  we  must  extend  the  examination  still  further, 
and  with  yet  greater  care  fortify  the  position. 

I  judge  that,  so  far  as  the  primary  sin  is  in  question,  there  is 
perfect  agreement  that  it  consisted  wholly  in  an  act  of  the 
creature,  and  not  at  all  in  a  nature.  It  is,  indeed,  by  those 
with  whom  we  now  reason,  insisted  that  the  creature  with 
whom  it  originated  was,  until  the  guilty  act,  really  holy.  They 
admit  that  out  of  a  holy  nature  emanated  an  unholy  act,  which 


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act  constituted  the  sin — the  whole  of  the  offending — of  the 
creature. 

What  we  aim  to  show  now  is  that  what  was  true  in  the 
primal  case  is  true  in  every  case ;  that  the  essence  of  the  primal 
sin  is  the  essence  of  every  sin ;  that  it  is  fundamental  to  it  that 
it  should  pertain  to  the  free  act  of  a  responsible  being;  that 
there  is  no  case  in  which  it  can  be  predicated  of  something 
which  antedates  a  movement  of  will,  and  the  will  of  a  person 
who  knows  obligation.  How  it  affects  nature  will  appear  in 
future  discussions. 

It  having  been  shown  that  the  moral  law  lays  its  imperative 
only  on  the  will  of  man,  and  indirectly  on  that  which  results 
from  the  action  or  guilty  nonaction  of  his  will,  and  not  on  any 
part  of  his  person  or  conduct,  which  exists  independently  of  his 
evil  act  and  beyond  its  control,  we  are  better  prepared  for  the 
discussion  of  the  point  in  hand,  and  we  shall  soon  find  that  it 
comes  to  essential  unity  with  the  question  disposed  of. 

Does  evil  (sin)  denote  only  that  which  contradicts  the  law, 
or  that  also  which  fails  to  satisfy  the  full  claim  of  the  law  ? 
Muller  discusses  the  question  as  if  it  were  this :  Does  the  moral 
law  require  the  moral  perfection  of  its  subject  ? — giving  to  the 
phrase  moral  perfection  the  significance  of  the  utmost  degree  of 
moral  excellence  as  to  nature  and  capacity  of  the  subject — and 
in  this  aspect  of  it  answers  in  substance :  If  there  be  no  distinc¬ 
tion  between  moral  perfection  and  moral  blamelessness,  between 
imperfection  and  sin,  then  progress  in  goodness  must  involve 
the  gradual  casting  away  of  the  evil  still  clinging  to  the  life. 
Progress  from  imperfection  toward  perfection  cannot  be  sepa¬ 
rated  from  normal  development ;  and  thus  it  is  plain  that  evil 
(sin)  cannot  be  predicated  of  the  mere  difference  between  perfec¬ 
tion  and  imperfection,  nor  of  the  necessary  difference  between  the 
ideal  and  the  empirical  reality.  To  the  question,  From  what 
can  any  minus,  any  deficiency,  in  relation  to  the  perfection 


What  is  Sin? 


59 


demanded  by  law,  arise,  save  the  power  of  an  opposing  princi¬ 
ple  somehow  associated  with,  it?  he  answers:  “The  necessity 
for  such  a  minus ,  in  the  beginning  of  man’s  course,  arises  sim¬ 
ply  from  the  fact  that  realization  of  moral  perfection  is  a  task 
assigned  him,  the  full  performance  of  which,  in  virtue  of  his 
nature,  he  can  only  accomplish  in  successive  moments  of  time. 
It  follows,  therefore,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  not  on  ac¬ 
count  of  sin,  that  it  must  be  beyond  man’s  power  at  the  outset 
absolutely  to  fulfill  the  demands  of  the  moral  law  in  its  entire 
range,  and  that  this  following  on  after  the  law  is  moral  imper¬ 
fection ,  but  not  sin.  If  it  were  sin,  sin  would  be  the  necessary 
outgo  of  finite  human  nature  in  the  state  in  which  it  is  created. 
.  .  .  But  if  there  be  a  moral  development  which  advances,  not 
from  evil  to  good,  but  from  good  to  better,  it  is  clear  that  there 
is  a  moral  integrity  or  blamelessness  distinct  from  moral  per¬ 
fection,  a  state  which  does  not  perfectly  correspond  to  the  ideal 
and  yet  does  not  contradict  it,  and  that  the  true  conception  of 
evil  (sin)  is  not  that  of  something  which  does  not  wholly  come 
up  to  the  perfection  which  the  law  demands,  but  must  be  de¬ 
fined  as  contradiction  of  the  law.”* 

To  this  lucid  statement  he  adds,  tending  to  the  same  objec¬ 
tive  point,  some  luminous  reflections  on  the  correlative  terms 
law  and  duty ,  in  which  he  shows  that  moral  law  is  the  sum  of 
all  requirements  upon  moral  beings  along  the  whole  line  of  their 
existence,  while  duty  is  a  determinative  moral  claim  which  ad¬ 
dresses  itself  to  any  person  at  any  given  moment. 

The  sum  of  which  is  that  the  law  claims,  of  each  moral  be¬ 
ing,  that  he  should  do,  each  moment  of  his  existence,  the  things 
he  ought  to  do  at  the  moment 

TV e  add,  there  never  can  be  a  moment  in  the  history  of  any 
moral  being  when  he  ought  to  do  or  be  anything  which  he 
has  not  the  power  to  do  or  be  unless  some  former  guilty  act 
*  Muller,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  yoI.  i,  pp.  65-67. 


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deprived  him  of  the  power.  The  moral  law  lays  no  claim  upon 
nonexistent  power  except  when  power  has  been  criminally 
destroyed. 

The  law  is  the  rule  of  action  for  a  will ;  duty  obliges  con¬ 
formity.  Disconformity  is  sin,  whenever  and  wherever  the 
obligation  exists ;  and  that  only  is  sin.  The  equivalent  of 
this  statement  is  that  which  was  taught  by  Aquinas  and  Bel- 
larmine  loDg  ago:  that  though  the  law  sets  forth  the  ideal  of 
perfection,  yet,  when  a  moral  subject  endeavors  with  all  his 
power  to  fulfill  its  claims,  shortcoming  arising  from  natural 
weakness  or  incompetence,  not  personally  superinduced,  is  not 
accounted  sin — is  not  sin;  failure  to  reach  the  ideal  of  the 
moral  law  is  sin  only,  even  in  the  act,  when  the  failure  is  vol¬ 
untary  ;  or  such  that  the  subject  had  power  to  avoid  it,  or 
power  to  achieve  perfect  conformity. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  among  all  authors  who  have 
treated  of  this  subject,  however  they  may  have  differed,  there 
is  substantial  agreement  on  these  several  points,  which  I  will 
venture  to  characterize  as  embodying  all  that  is  fundamental  : 

First,  that  sin  can  only  be  predicated  of  a  person.  Second, 
that  it  can  only  be  predicated  of  that  pertaining  to  a  person 
which  is  in  violation  of  moral  law.  Third,  that  specific  acts  of 
violation  of  moral  law  are  sins  only  when  the  law  is  known, 
or  might  have  been  known,  and  when  the  person  was  free  in 
the  act.  Fourth,  that  in  every  case  sin  involves  a  volitional 
act — an  act  of  the  will.  Fifth,  that  the  moral  law  imperates 
duty  in  such  form  that  it  can  only  be  kept  or  broken  by  some 
movement  of  will.  All  of  which  indicates  a  universal  convic¬ 
tion  that,  however  a  nature  may  be  involved  in  sin,  it  must  be 
in  some  way  in  connection  with  a  movement  of  the  will  and 
cannot  antedate  it ;  must  be  a  something  in  which  the  person 
sins  or  is  a  sinner.  The  terms  are  active.  Did  no  act  trans¬ 
pire  there  could  be  neither  sinner  nor  sin  in  the  universe. 


What  is  Sin? 


61 


The  Assembly’s  Catechism,  in  adding  to  the  revealed  defi¬ 
nition  of  sin,  if  it  means  to  add  to  it  any  idea  not  included  in 
it,  is  unauthorized.  If  by  “  any  want  of  conformity  to  ”  it 
means  any  transgression  of  it  is  sound,  but  confusing ;  if  it 
means  something  different  from ,  it  is  misleading  and  impertinent. 
This  particular  phase  of  the  subject  will  be  considered  more  at 
length  when  we’ come  to  discuss  the  doctrine  of  so-called  origi¬ 
nal  sin.  In  this  connection  we  will  add  a  few  reflections  only. 

If  by  disconformity  to  law  be  meant  a  disconformity  of  the 
act  to  the  law  requirement  it  is  precisely  the  equivalent  of 
transgression  of  the  law,  and  is  useless.  If  it  means,  as  most 
of  interpreters  insist  it  does,  something  in  the  nature  itself,  a 
state  or  quality  of  the  being  himself,  given  in  existence  and  by 
no  fault  of  the  recipient,  we  are  plunged  at  once  into  confusion. 
What  do  we  mean  by  disconformity  of  a  nature  or  being  to 
law?  Does  it  mean  that  the  being  or  nature  in  question  is 
abnormal,  distorted,  perverted,  not  according  to  the  ideal? 
that  it  has  lost  some  primitive  quality,  or  taken  on  some  alien 
condition?  that  it  fails  to  meet  the  end  originally  purposed 
for  it,  and  goes,  by  some  inherent  fault,  to  an  opposite  end  ? 
All  this  is  conceivable.  And  it  is  conceivable  that  any  such 
distortion  would  be  displeasing  to  him  whose  ideal  was  thus 
distorted.  But  the  question  is,  Would  its  existence  constitute 
the  subject  of  it  a  sinner,  provided  it  were  a  fact  that  he  had 
nothing  to  do  with  its  existence  ?  Would  the  displeasure  felt 
against  it,  or  on  account  of  it,  if  any  displeasure  might  exist, 
be  the  same  in  kind  as  that  which  is  felt  against  a  transgression 
of  law  in  a  matter  of  duty  ?  Could  guilt — desert  of  punish¬ 
ment — be  predicated  of  the  one  case  as  of  the  other?  We  are 
quite  sure  the  cases  are  so  extremely  dissimilar  that  their  dif¬ 
ference  in  kind  must  be  at  once  discerned ;  and  that  difference 
marks  the  one  as  sin,  the  other  as  misfortune. 

Each  disconformity,  it  may  be,  is  displeasing.  May  it  not 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


be  further  admitted  that  each  stands  in  the  way  of  the  perfect 
good  of  its  subject,  but  on  entirely  different  grounds:  the  one 
as  sin  demanding  punishment,  the  other  as  disorder  demanding 
cure;  the  one  coming  home  to  the  subject  as  guilty  cause,  the 
other  finding  in  him  a  passive  recipient  of  a  disabling  injury? 

Disconformity  to  law,  then,  is  not  the  essential  idea  or  ele¬ 
ment  of  sin,  but  disconformity  of  a  specific  hind ;  disconformity 
not  of  inherited  nature,  but  of  voluntary  act;  disconformity 
originating  with  and  emanating  from  the  subject  of  it;  discon¬ 
formity  in  a  matter  of  duty  and  obligation ;  disconformity  for 
the  existence  of  which  the  subject  is  responsible,  and  which 
may  be  charged  upon  him  as  guilty  cause ;  which  cannot,  there¬ 
fore,  lie  back  of  a  forth-putting  of  his  agency.  Did  no  forth- 
putting  of  agency  transpire  there  could  neither  be  sin  nor 
sinner  in  the  universe ;  nothing  of  which  sin  could  be  predi¬ 
cated,  and  no  person  who  could  be  held  as  a  sinner.  And  the 
sin  in  every  case  is  predicable  only  of  the  individual  agent  who 
acts.  Sin  is  a  person’s  sin,  and  the  person  who  sins  is  a  sinner ; 
and  sin  could  be  predicated  of  him  in  no  other  way,  and  on  no 
other  account,  but  that  he  has  sinned.  Personal  agency  is  ab¬ 
solutely  requisite  to  the  existence  of  sin,  and  it  resides  in  that 
agency,  in  the  manner  of  its  exercise,  and  cannot  come  into 
being  in  any  other  way. 

Is  it  said,  Yes,  sin  is  personal,  but  it  lies  in  the  person  an¬ 
terior  to  action ;  in  a  state  of  the  person  out  of  which  his  act 
itself  emanates  ?  This  point  is  more  strongly  put  by  Professor 
Shedd  than  by  any  other  on  the  side  he  represents.  We  shall 
reach  his  view  in  a  moment. 

Assuming,  for  the  present,  that  we  have  made  good  the  posi¬ 
tion  that  sin  is  the  product  of  a  person,  by  the  free  exercise  of 
his  personal  agency,  let  us  now  endeavor  to  find  the  precise 
point  of  agency  at  which  it  arises,  the  most  primitive  point  to 
which  it  may  be  traced. 


What  is  Sin? 


63 


The  moral  law,  of  which  sin  is  the  transgression,  lays  its 
imperative  on  the  subject  as  to  external  conduct ;  that  is,  it 
requires  him  to  do  or  forbear  certain  external  acts ;  and  the 
command  is  so  broad  in  this  respect  as  to  cover  almost  all  the 
activities  of  his  life. 

Does  sin  consist  in  the  disconformity  of  the  external  act  to 
the  command?  Is  that  disconformity  the  moral  transgression 
of  the  law  ?  We  cannot  better  answer  this  question  than  in  the 
language  of  Dr.  Shedd  : 

“  Suppose  we  arrest  the  sinner  in  the  outward  act,  and  fix 
our  attention  upon  sin  in  this  form,  we  are  immediately  com¬ 
pelled,  by  the  operation  of  our  own  minds,  to  let  go  of  this 
outward  act,  and  to  seek  for  the  reality  of  his  sin  within  him. 
The  outward  act,  we  see  in  an  instant,  is  but  an  effect  of  a 
cause ;  and  we  instinctively  turn  our  eye  inward  and  fasten  it 
upon  the  cause.  The  outward  act  of  transgression  drives  us  by 
the  very  laws  of  thought  to  the  person  that  produced  it-— to  the 
particular  volition  that  originated  it.  No  mind  that  thinks  at 
all  upon  sin  can  possibly  stop  with  the  outward  act.  Its  own 
rational  reflection  hurries  it  away,  almost  instantaneously,  from 
the  blow  of  the  murderer — from  the  momentary  gleam  of  the 
knife — to  the  volition  within  that  strung  the  muscle  and  nerved 
the  blow.” 

If  upon  examination  it  were  found  that  the  blow  was  not  in¬ 
tended,  even  though  death  was  the  result  of  it,  we  should  not 
find  the  guilt  of  murder.  We  rest  not  until  we  find  a  will 
directing  it  with  murderous  intent.  He  proceeds : 

“But  the  mind  cannot  stop  here  in  its  search  for  the  essential 

reality  of  sin.  When  we  have  reached  the  sphere — the  inward 

sphere — of  volitions  we  have  by  no  means  reached  the  ultimate 

ground  and  form  of  sin.  We  may  suppose  that  because  we 

have  gone  beyond  the  outward  act — because  we  are  now  within 

the  man — we  have  found  sin  in  its  last  form.  But  we  are 

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Studies  in  Theology. 


mistaken.  Closer  tliinking  and,  what  is  still  better,  a  deeper 
experience  will  disclose  to  ns  a  depth  in  our  souls  lower  than 
that  in  which  volition  occurs,  and  a  form  of  sin  in  that  depth, 
and  to  the  very  bottom  of  it,  very  different  from  the  sin  of 
single  volitions.” 

What  that  deeper  depth  is,  Dr.  Shedd  assures  us,  is  a  nature 
underlying  volitions.  The  discussion  is  exceedingly  able,  and 
as  it  contains  much  with  which  we  agree,  and  also  much  from 
which  we  dissent,  we  must  examine  it  with  particularity  and 
in  detail,  giving  him  the  benefit  of  his  own  statements. 

Nothing  can  be  more  obvious,  we  think,  than  that  sin  finds 
its  germ  in  the  innermost,  and  most  central,  act  of  the  will — 
the  very  shrine  of  personality.  It  consists  in  the  determina¬ 
tion  of  the  will  to  evil,  and,  though  expressed  inconcrete  acts 
specifically  forbidden,  it  transpires  before  any  concrete  act — it 
may  be  before  any  separate  volition  to  a  concrete  act — in  a  yet 
more  primitive  and  all-embracing  determination  to  self,  as 
against  God ;  but  behind  the  ivill  and  its  movement  we  cannot  go. 
The  most  primitive  moral  act  possible  to  a  person,  it  may  be, 
is  choice  of  an  end;  if  it  be  self  he  becomes  by  the  choice  a  sin¬ 
ner  ;  separate  will-acts,  to  definite  sins,  are  but  the  outgrowth 
of  the  more  radical  primitive  choice.  If  any  choose  to  denom¬ 
inate  this  more  general  determination  a  nature,  as  Dr.  Shedd 
does,  we  do  not  object,  except  that  it  confuses. 

Dr.  Hopkins,  in  his  Law  of  Love ,  has  written  luminously  on 
this  subject,  as  he  does  upon  all  subjects  of  which  he  treats. 
He  is  inquiring  for  the  seat  of  responsibility.  A  person,  he 
says,  is  something  more  than  reason  and  will.  We  get  misty 
and  lose  ourselves  by  always  using  abstract  terms  and  the 
names  of  attributes.  A  person  is  a  substance,  a  being ,  that  has 
reason  and  will.  Here  we  reach  an  agent,  and  the  true  point 
of  responsibility — the  man  himself.  It  is  the  man  himself,  the 
person,  the  self,  the  ego — the  man,  whatever  you  please  to 


What  is  Sin? 


65 


term  it — that  we  hold  responsible,  and  praise  or  blame.  It  is 
this  mysterious — mysterious  as  all  things  are  that  are  simple 
— this  mysterious  and  inscrutable  person — this  self-conscious, 
thinking,  comprehending,  electing  being — it  is  the  man  himself 
that  we  approve  or  disapprove.  Constitutional  tendencies,  de¬ 
sires,  affections,  have  no  moral  character  till  he  adopts  them 
and  consents,  or  elects,  that  they  shall  move  in  a  particular 
direction.  After  other  wise  remarks  he  continues,  in  sub¬ 
stance  :  “  From  what  has  been  said  we  shall  readily  see  what 
that  form  of  activity  is  to  which  responsibility  ultimately 
attaches.  It  is  not  volition,  regarded  simply  as  an  executive 
act ;  it  is  preference.  It  is  that  immanent  act  of  preference  by 
which  we  dispose  of  ourselves,  and  on  which  character  de¬ 
pends.  It  is  this  that  gives  set  to  the  current  of  the  soul  and 
determines  the  character  of  subsequent  specific  acts  of  prefer¬ 
ence  and  volition  under  it.  It  is  an  act  of  will  as  distinguished 
from  the  feelings.”* 

Nothing  is  plainer  than  that  here  the  doctrine  is  what  we 
have  affirmed :  that  sin  is  found  in  the  act  of  a  person,  in  the 
choice  or  election  of  an  end,  conceived,  in  the  presence  of  a 
sense  of  obligation,  or  law,  to  be  wrong.  The  preference  is 
declared  to  be  an  act  of  will,  and  not  an  impulse. 

Even  Dr.  Shedd  does  not  get  away  from  this  ground.  “In 
regard  to  the  first  point,”  he  says,  “the  position  taken  is  that 
this  sinful  nature  is  in  the  will,  and  is  the  product  of  the  will.” 
This  statement  is  hardly  satisfactory  to  him,  so,  after  much  dis¬ 
cussion,  he  returns  to  it,  to  explain  further : 

“  In  saying,  therefore,  that  the  sinful  nature  of  man  is  a 
product  of  his  will,  we  do  not  mean  to  teach  that  it  has  its 
origin  in  the  will  considered  as  the  faculty  of  choices,  or  par¬ 
ticular  volitions.  .  .  .  But  it  seems  to  us  that  we  can  have  a 
fuller  and  more  adequate  idea  of  the  voluntary  power  in  man 

*  Pp.  66-68,  et  al. 


66 


Studies  in  Theology. 


than  this  comes  to.  It  seems  to  us  that  our  idea  of  the  human 
will  is  by  no  means  exhausted  of  its  contents  when  we  have 
taken  into  view  merely  that  ability  which  a  man  has  to  regu¬ 
late  his  conduct  in  a  particular  instance.  It  seems  to  us  that 
we  do  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  controlling  power  in  the 
soul  that  is  far  more  central  and  profound  than  the  quite  super¬ 
ficial  faculty  by  which  we  regulate  the  movement  of  our  limbs 
outwardly,  or  inwardly  summon  our  energies  to  the  perform¬ 
ance  of  particular  acts.  It  seems  to  us  that  by  the  will  is 
meant  a  voluntary  power  that  lies  at  the  very  center  of  the 
soul,  and  whose  movements  consist,  not  so  much  in  choosing 
or  refusing,  in  reference  to  particular  circumstances,  as  in  deter¬ 
mining  the  whole  man  with  reference  to  some  great  and  ultimate 
end  of  being.  The  characteristic  of  the  will  proper,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  voluntary  faculty,  is  determination  of  the  whole 
being  to  an  ultimate  end ,  rather  than  selection  of  means  for  at¬ 
taining  that  end  in  a  particular  case.  The  difference  between 
the  voluntary  and  volitionary  powers — between  the  will  proper 
and  the  faculty  of  choices — may  be  seen  by  considering  a  par¬ 
ticular  instance  of  the  exercise  of  the  latter.  Suppose  that  a 
man  chooses  to  indulge  one  of  his  appetites  in  a  particular  in¬ 
stance — the  appetite  for  alcoholic  stimulants,  for  example — and 
that  he  actually  does  gratify  it.  In  this  instance  he  puts  forth 
one  single  volition,  and  performs  one  particular  act.  By  an  act 
of  the  faculty  of  choices,  of  which  he  is  distinctly  conscious, 
and  over  which  he  has  arbitrary  power,  he  drinks,  and  gratifies 
his  appetite.  But  why  does  he  thus  choose  in  this  particular 
instance?  In  other  words,  is  there  not  a  deeper  ground  for 
this  single  volition  ?  Is  not  this  particular  act  of  the  choice 
determined  by  a  far  deeper  and  preexisting  determination  of 
his  whole  inward  being  to  self  as  an  ultimate  end  of  living  ? 
And  now,  if  the  will  should  be  widened  out  and  deepened  so 
as  to  contain  this  whole  inward  state  of  the  man — this  entire 


What  is  Sin? 


67 


tendency  of  the  soul  to  self  and  sin — is  it  not  plain  that  it 
would  be  a  very  different  mode  of  power  from  that  which  put 
forth  the  particular  volition?  Would  not  the  will  as  thus  con¬ 
ceived  cover  a  far  wider  surface  of  the  soul,  and  reach  down  to 
a  far  deeper  depth  in  it,  than  the  faculty  of  single  choices, 
which  covers  but  a  single  point  on  the  surface,  and  never  goes 
below  the  surface?  Would  not  a  faculty  comprehensive 
enough  to  include  the  whole  man,  and  sufficiently  deep  and 
central  to  be  the  origin  and  basis  of  a  nature,  a  character,  a  per¬ 
manent  moral  state,  be  a  very  different  faculty  from  that  voli¬ 
tionary  power  whose  activity  is  merely  on  the  surface,  and 
whose  products  are  single  resolutions  and  transient  volitions  ? 
.  .  .  The  will  as  thus  defined  we  affirm  to  be  the  guilty  author 
of  the  sinful  nature.  Indeed ,  this  sinful  nature  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  state  of  the  will;  nothing  more  nor  less  than  its  con¬ 
stant  and  total  determination  to  self  as  the  ultimate  end  of  being. 
This  voluntary  power,  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  soul  as  its 
elementary  base,  and  carrying  all  the  faculties  and  powers  of 
the  man  along  with  it,  whenever  it  moves  and  wherever  it  goes, 
has  turned  away  from  God  as  an  ultimate  end ;  and  this  self- 
direction — this  permanent  and  entire  determination  of  itself — 
this  state  of  the  will,  is  the  sinful  nature  of  man. 

“  Here,  then,  we  have  a  depraved  nature,  and  a  depraved 
nature  that  is  guilt  because  it  is  a  self-originated  nature. 
Here,  then,  is  the  child  of  wrath.  Were  this  nature  created 
and  put  into  a  man,  as  an  intellectual  nature  or  as  a  particular 
temperament  is  put  into  him,  by  the  Creator  of  all  things,  it 
would  not  be  a  responsible  and  guilty  nature  nor  would  man 
be  a  child  of  wrath.  ...  It  has  its  origin  in  the  free  and 
responsible  use  of  that  voluntary  power  which  God  has  created 
and  placed  in  the  human  soul  as  its  most  central,  most  myste¬ 
rious,  and  most  hazardous  endowment.  It  is  a  self-determined 
nature ;  that  is,  a  nature  originated  in  a  will  and  by  a  will.  ” 


68 


Studies  in  Theology. 


These  are  weighty  words,  and  deserve  great  consideration. 
They  trace  the  genesis  of  sin  to  precisely  the  point  at  which 
we  locate  it,  the  will,  and  to  an  action  of  the  will.  That  this 
most  primitive  action  is  called  a  nature  does  not  at  all  change 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  free  act  of  a  free  will,  and  this  is  all  that 
we  contend  for.  When  this  most  primitive  act  takes  place  in 
the  history  of  individual  men  or  human  beings  is  a  point  which 
for  the  present  is  not  raised.  That  subject  will  be  fully  treated 
when  we  come  to  consider  the  subject  of  original  sin,  so 
phrased.  But  it  is  manifest  in  this  extensive  extract  that,  with 
all  his  effort,  Shedd  himself  does  not,  even  when  he  imputes 
sin  to  a  nature  and  calls  it  a  nature,  get  clear  of  the  admission 
that  it  always  centers  in  the  will,  and  consists  of  an  act  of  the 
will.  We  desire  here  to  give  great  emphasis  to  the  single 
point  that  sin,  whenever  and  wherever  and  however  it  exists, 
consists  in  that  movement  of  will  which  arrays  itself  against  its 
law — which  determines  it  to  an  end  other  than  that  to  which  its 
law  obliges  it — which  carries  the  whole  personality.  Until  this 
act  has  transpired  sin  cannot  be  predicated. 

In  order  to  any  movement  of  a  will  or  person,  it  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted,  the  person  or  will  must  be  supposed  to  exist.  Existence 
is  necessarily  antecedent  to  action.  It  must  appear,  therefore, 
that  if  sin  located  in  a  movement  of  will,  a  great  fundamental 
act,  the  person,  who  necessarily  existed  antecedently  to  the  act, 
was  then  free  from  sin. 

In  the  case  of  the  Adam  before  the  fall  there  is  no  dispute 
upon  this  point.  In  him  whatever  existed  antecedently  to  that 
act  of  his  will  which  constituted  him  a  sinner  was  normal — those 
with  whom  we  controvert  now  say  it  was  holy.  Then  from  a 
holy  nature  originated  the  unholy  act.  Then,  in  order  to  ac¬ 
count  for  the  unholy  act  of  apostasy,  we  do  not  have  to  seek  a 
cause  lying  back  of  will  in  an  unholy  nature.  This  is  a 
most  important  concession,  since  it  is  precisely  what  we  have 


What  is  Sin? 


69 


contended  for,  namely,  that  sin  is  not  predicable  of  a  nature, 
but  of  an  act  of  a  specific  kind. 

It  accords  with  universal  consciousness  that  we  impute  to 
ourselves  and  to  our  fellow-men,  except  idiots  and  insane 
persons  and  infants,  blame,  in  view  of  certain  of  their  acts  or 
nonacts.  We  reproach  them,  condemn  them,  account  them 
deserving  of  punishment — reproach  ourselves,  condemn  our¬ 
selves,  and  account  ourselves  worthy  of  punishment.  It  ac¬ 
cords  with  the  same  universal  consciousness  that  we  do  not  and 
cannot  experience  the  same,  or  similar,  feeling  toward  any 
other  being  or  thing,  animate  or  inanimate,  or  even  toward 
ourselves  or  our  fellows,  with  respect  to  other  of  our  acts,  or 
with  respect  to  anything  in  our  nature  which  is  born  with  us. 
There  must  be  a  reason  for  this,  and  the  universality  of  the 
fact  must  be  attributed  to  a  universal  and  identical  cause.  No 
such  phenomena  could  appear  in  consciousness,  invariably  and 
universally,  without  a  common  ground.  Experimental  science, 
when  it  discovers  invariable  sequence,  predicates  identity  of 
causation  or  antecedents ;  identical  effect  proclaims  identical 
causation.  The  effect  here  is  an  awakened  feeling  of  condem¬ 
nation  of  a  man  because  of  certain  of  his  acts.  Now,  what  is  it 
in  the  act,  or  because  of  the  act,  which  gives  rise  to  this  invari¬ 
able  feeling?  Is  it  that  it  is  harmful,  injurious,  destructive  of 
good?  That  this  is  a  part  of  the  ground  there  can  be  no  ques¬ 
tion  ;  it  must  possess  this  character  in  order  that  the  feeling  of 
condemnation  may  be  awakened ;  but,  alone,  is  it  a  full  and 
adequate  explanation  ?  Take  a  case — murder.  Does  the  im¬ 
putation  of  blame  depend  wholly  on  the  ground  that  the  de¬ 
struction  of  human  life  is  injurious  ?  Certainly  not,  or  it  must 
follow  in  every  case  in  which  life  is  destroyed.  But  this  we 
find  is  not  the  fact.  The  tiger  kills  ;  the  earthquake  swallows 
up  a  city ;  the  storm  whelms  a  fleet ;  contagion  decimates  a 
province.  We  do  not  impute  blame  to  any  of  these,  though 


70 


Studies  in  Theology. 


the  effect  of  the  destruction  of  human  life  is  common  to  them 
all.  It  is  not,  then,  solely  the  fact  of  a  killing,  and  injury  re¬ 
sulting  therefrom,  which  awakens  the  feeling  of  blame.  We 
must  find  some  other  and  additional  ground.  And  what  is  true 
in  this  case  is  true  in  every  case  in  which  the  feeling  arises. 
There  is  something  additional,  as  cause  of  the  feeling,  to  the 
mere  harmful  effect  of  the  act.  The  harmful  effect  may,  in¬ 
deed,  be  almost  wholly  obscured  in  the  consciousness ;  we 
may  not  at  all  know  how  it  injuriously  affects  any  good  of 
being,  but  for  some  reason  we  may  suppose  that  it  does  before 
we  can  condemn  it ;  but  this  supposition  or  discovery  is  not 
the  adequate  ground  of  condemnation.  Upon  more  careful  anal¬ 
ysis  we  discover  that  the  feeling  of  blame  is  awakened  by  the 
knowledge  we  have  of  certain  unique  qualities  existing  in  the 
perpetrator  of  the  act  which  give  heinousness  to  it,  and  draw 
down  blame  upon  him.  What  are  these  conditioning  factors  ? 

1.  We  allege,  as  a  part  of  the  ground  of  our  feeling,  he  knew 
better.  By  which  we  mean  to  affirm  two  things :  he  knew  that 
the  act  which  he  did  would  do  harm,  and  that  there  was  an 
alternative  possible  nonact  or  other  act  that  would  not  be  pro¬ 
ductive  of  any  or  of  equal  harm. 

2.  We  allege  that  at  the  time  when  he  perpetrated  the  act 
he  knew  that  it  was  wrong,  that  he  ought  not  to  do  it — or  might 
so  have  known. 

3.  We  allege  that  when  he  did  the  act  he  had  the  conscious¬ 
ness,  not  only  that  it  was  wrong,  but  that  he  had  the  power  to 
refrain  from  it.  The  act  after  it  is  performed  is  followed  by 
the  corresponding  conviction  that  it  was  not  unavoidable. 

4.  We  allege  that  in  the  light  of  all  these  knowings,  and 
against  all  these  feelings,  prompting  to  another  and  better  act, 
he  intended  to  do  precisely  what  he  did  do,  believing  it  to  be 
wrong,  when  he  was  not  under  constraint  of  any  kind  neces¬ 
sitating  him,  and  when  he  had  full  liberty  to  the  opposite. 


"What  is  Sin? 


71 


These  several  factors  are  essential  to  intelligent  feeling  or 
imputation  of  blame  in  any  and  every  case,  and  as  predicable 
of  man,  and  of  man  alone ,  constitute  the  reason  why  we  do,  in¬ 
variably,  consciously  impute  blame  to  him  for  some  of  bis  acts 
and  not  for  others ;  and  why  we  impute  blame  to  him,  and  not 
to  other  things  or  beings,  when  they  are  cause  of  similar 
effects.  Any  one  of  them  wanting,  we  are  consciously  inca¬ 
pable  of  the  feeling  that  he  ought  to  be  blamed. 

If  these  presumed  grounds  are  true  we  cannot  repress  the  feel¬ 
ing  that  the  blame  we  impute  is  just ;  but  if  we  should  discover 
that  any  one  of  them  is  false  we  should  be  compelled  to  revise 
the  feeling.  If  it  should  be  discovered  that  the  act  which  we 
supposed  was  injurious  was,  in  fact,  beneficent ;  or  if  we  should 
find  that  he  did  not  know  it  to  be  harmful,  supposed  it  not  to 
be,  when,  in  fact,  it  was ;  or  if  we  should  ascertain  that  he  did 
not  know  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong,  or  was  in¬ 
capable  of  feeling  obligation  to  the  right  and  to  refrain  from 
the  wrong ;  or  if  we  should  come  to  know  that  he  really  had 
no  power  to  avoid  the  act ;  or  if  we  should  be  compelled  to 
conclude  that  he  did  not  intend  it  as  mischievous,  or  that  it 
was  involuntary  or  forced,  we  could  no  more  impute  blame  to 
him  than  we  can  to  an  earthquake.  These  are  antecedent  and 
conditioning  postulates  of  ethics.  The  corresponding  condi¬ 
tions  of  praiseworthy  action  will  suggest  themselves.  The 
facts  of  desert  and  ill  desert  are  conditioned  in  precisely 
the  same  manner,  and  the  same  conditions  apply  to  God 
and  the  whole  retinue  of  moral  existences.  Any  one  of 
them,  from  the  highest  down,  would  incur  blame  or  deserve 
praise  on  precisely  the  same,  and  on  no  other  possible,  grounds. 
And  not  to  impute  it  on  these  grounds,  or  to  be  able  to  impute 
it  on  any  other  grounds,  we  should  have  to  be  reconstructed. 

In  this  analysis  we  do  not  raise  the  question  as  to  the 
origin  or  grounds  of  right  and  wrong — the  reasons  why  some 


72 


Studies  in  Theology. 


things  are  right,  others  wrong ;  why  some  things  ought  and 
others  ought  not  to  be.  Doubtless  the  examination  would  show 
that  it  is  a  distinction  which  is  grounded  in  the  nature  of  God, 
and  is,  therefore,  unchangeable  and  eternal.  We  should  find 
that  his  will  is  the  standard,  and  that  his  will  is  unchangeable 
as  the  supreme  good ;  and  that  right  therefore  is  right  because 
it  is  that  which  is  in  conformity  to  his  will,  and  the  exact 
measure  of  the  supreme  good,  and  that  wrong  is  wrong  be¬ 
cause  it  is  disconformity  to  his  will  and  therefore  to  the 
supreme  good.  That  herein  is  that  which  makes  the  eternal 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong.  The  distinction  is  made  known 
to  us,  and  the  standard  in  some  measure  is  revealed  in  our  con¬ 
sciousness,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  so  that  we  are  able  to 
try  our  acts  by  it,  and  to  say  this  is  right  and  this  is  wrong, 
and  so  to  feel  the  imperative  of  the  ought  and  ought  not  before 
an  act  is  performed,  and  condemnation  or  approval  afterward. 
W e  find  that  there  is  a  standard,  which  applies  to  the  entire 
circle  of  our  volitional  acting,  which  affects  the  supreme  good 
whether  of  thoughts,  affections,  intentions,  or  external  actions ; 
reaching  inward  to  our  hidden  motives  and  choices,  and  regu¬ 
lating  our  duties  toward  God,  toward  our  fellows,  and  toward 
ourselves,  so  that  there  is  no  moment  of  waking  conscious¬ 
ness  when  its  imperative  is  not  touching  us  in  some  form. 
There  is  no  man,  equipped  with  a  small  amount  of  intelligence, 
who  does  not  detect  the  presence  of  such  a  standard  in  him,  and 
who  is  not  in  some  measure  affected  by  its  authority ;  it  is  for¬ 
ever  trying  and  condemning  or  approving  us.  As  a  standard 
of  action  it  reaches  inward  to  the  deepest  springs  of  action,  and 
lays  its  imperative  on  the  will,  both  as  to  motives  and  most 
primary  choices.  But,  as  stated,  our  aim  is  not  now  to  ascer¬ 
tain  the  sources  of  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong,  nor  yet 
the  extent  or  authority  of  the  standard,  but  rather  to  point  out 

the  grounds  or  conditioning  facts  which  make  us  impute  blame 
6 


What  is  Sin  ? 


73 


to  ourselves  when  a  wrong  act  is  performed  or  a  right  act 
omitted :  in  other  words,  the  conditioning  grounds  of  amena¬ 
bility  ;  presuppositions  without  which  we  cannot  be  subjects  of 
the  law,  and  can  neither  break  nor  keep  it ;  neither  be  con¬ 
demned  nor  approved  by  it. 

It  is  a  law  for  the  government  of  wills  directly,  and  of  all  ex¬ 
ternal  acts  which  emanate  from  the  will  or  are  volitional.  The 
conditions  of  its  possible  violation,  as  we  have  found,  are  that 
we  should  know  the  right  which  it  enjoins,  that  we  should 
discern  the  obligation,  that  we  should  be  able  to  keep  it,  that 
any  act  which  seems  to  violate  it  should  be  intentional — an  act 
of  choice — and  free.  Nothing  that  we  can  be  or  do,  which 
does  not  presuppose  these  conditions,  can  make  us  deserving  of 
its  condemnation  nor  exposed  to  its  penalties,  or  vice  versa. 

If  we  are  right  in  these  predications  blame  can  only  be 
imputed  for  a  certain  kind  of  volitional  activity,  under  certain 
conditions,  and  for  effects  which  emanate  therefrom,  or  for  the 
want  of  them.  In  every  possible  case  the  imputation  of  either 
merit  or  demerit  must  respect  the  will  ultimately,  as  does  the 
law  by  which  the  fact  of  merit  or  demerit  is  determined.  In 
no  case  can  we  go  behind  a  will-act,  as  above  predicated.  This 
excludes  mere  nature,  and  all  automatic,  instinctive,  necessi¬ 
tated,  or  unintentional  actions.  For  any  of  these  it  is  impossible 
to  impute  blame,  except  in  ignorance  or  malice.  But,  it  is  said, 
in  fact  we  do  affirm  blame  of  depravity,  of  evil  disposition,  of 
impure  imagination,  of  lustful  feelings,  which  are  purely  invol¬ 
untary.  This  is  not  true,  and  what  it  asserts  is  impossible. 
"W e  impute  blame  for  the  nonrepression,  noncorrection,  and  non¬ 
restraint  of  evil  tendencies  which  we  find  in  our  nature,  but 
not  for  their  existence,  unless  their  existence  can  be  traced 
directly  to  our  volitional  activity — to  some  wrong  use  of  will, 
or  failure  to  will.  The  blame  in  these  cases,  as  in  every  other, 

ultimately  comes  back  to  some  misuse  or  nonuse  of  power. 

6 "  6 


74 


Studies  m  Theology. 


We  may  dread  an  evil  distemper,  or  be  disgusted  with  an  in¬ 
curable  natural  mischievousness,  as  we  do  when  it  appears  in 
brutes,  and  may  for  self -protection  destroy  them  as  dangerous. 
A  malicious  lunatic  or  evil-disposed  idiot  awakens  alarm,  and 
we  shut  him  up.  But  in  such  cases  we  do  not  pretend  that 
they  are  amenable  to  the  ought ;  and  this  not  simply  because 
they  lack  intelligence,  but  because,  lacking  the  intelligence  to 
know  the  right,  they  lack  the  conditions  to  responsible  action 
— that  is,  the  power  to  choose  right  ends. 

Thus  it  appears  that  universal  consciousness  attests  both  the 
fact  and  grounds  of  our  responsibility.  The  fact  is  substan¬ 
tially  uniform,  and  is  as  wide  as  the  race,  the  only  exceptions 
being  instances  of  idiocy  or  cases  of  undeveloped  intelligence 
among  adults,  and  all  infants,  none  of  which  classes  are  proper 
subjects  of  moral  law.  This  enunciation  of  universal  con¬ 
science  cannot  be  unimportant.  We  cannot  feel  it  to  be  so. 
It  disturbs  us ;  it  breaks  in  on  the  quiet  of  our  lives ;  it  points 
ominously  to  the  future — we  find  ourselves  unable  to  escape 
from  it  or  to  lay  it.  It  is  inexorable ;  will  be  appeased  only 
by  being  regarded.  It  pushes  on  past  all  external  actions  into 
the  very  citadel  of  the  soul,  and  arraigns  our  motives  and  pri¬ 
mary  determinations.  It  will  have  nothing  short  of  an  un¬ 
broken  intention  to  keep  inviolate  its  demands.  It  asserts  our 
ability  to  keep  all  its  requirements,  and  compels  us  to  blame 
ourselves  for  every  infraction,  on  the  charge  that  we  know  the 
right,  and  might  have  done  it.  If  the  charge  be  true  we  can¬ 
not  escape.  That  it  is  true  will  further  appear  in  discussing 
the  doctrine  of  the  will. 

A  vicious  habit  obtains  in  treating  of  the  will,  as  if  it  were 
something  apart  from  the  man — something  that  stood  alone, 
and  had  a  kind  of  personality  of  its  own.  This  tends  greatly 
to  confusion.  As  it  is  the  man  who  knows  and  feels,  so  it  is 
the  man  who  wills.  The  three  words  simply  describe  forms  of 


6 


What  is  Sin? 


io 


activity  which  the  man  exhibits  and  exerts.  When  an  object 
passes  before  him,  or  when  in  some  way  it  is  brought  into  cer¬ 
tain  relations  to  him,  he  cognizes  it — takes  note  of  its  exist¬ 
ence.  When  it  becomes  an  object  of  cognition  it  impresses  him 
with  some  sort  of  feeling,  pleasurable  or  the  reverse  ;  awakens 
in  him  admiration,  desire,  a  sense  of  duty,  or  the  opposite.  In 
the  presence  of  the  object  some  one  of  these  feelings  arises.  It 
is  the  man  who  cognizes  and  feels.  If  the  object  be  one  of  ad¬ 
miration,  he  simply  admires ;  if  it  be  one  which  simply  excites 
disgust,  he  is  disgusted ;  but  if  it  awaken  desire  to  possess  it,  or 
a  sense  of  duty — if  it  be  something  which  he  thinks  he  ought 
to  have,  or  which  he  would  like  to  have,  or  something  which 
he  feels  he  ought  not  to  have  or  ought  not  to  do ;  or  if  he  feel 
that  he  would  like  to  have  it  but  ought  not,  or  would  like  to 
do  it  but  ought  not  to — immediately  he  is  brought  into  new  re¬ 
lations  to  the  subject,  and  commences  a  new  form  of  action 
with  regard  to  it,  discrete  from  both  the  antecedent  knowing 
and  feeling.  He  chooses  it,  he  determines  to  have  or  do  it,  or 
he  refuses  it  and  determines  that  he  will  not  have  or  do  it. 
This  is  called  an  act  of  will,  or  willing — the  power  exerted  in 
the  act  is  called  the  will — but  it  is  the  man  who  acts,  and  the 
word  will  only  describes  the  unique  power  he  exerts.  Ho  form 
of  activity  is  more  frequent  or  better  understood.  It  comes  into 
play  almost  every  waking  moment.  He  is  weary  of  standing — 
he  chooses  to  sit ;  he  is  tired  of  the  house — he  chooses  to  go 
forth  ;  he  wants  a  book — he  chooses  to  take  it ;  it  is  the  time 
for  church  or  the  theater — he  chooses  to  go ;  he  thinks  of  a 
journey — he  chooses  to  make  it ;  he  chooses  what  he  will  eat, 
what  wear,  what  business  he  will  pursue,  whom  he  will  wed, 
where  he  will  take  up  his  abode,  the  color  of  his  coat,  the  style 
of  his  garment,  his  reading,  whether  it  shall  be  light  or  grave, 
his  politics,  whether  he  will  support  this  or  that  party — in  a 
word,  everything  he  does  or  does  not,  his  entire  life  of  waking 


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Studies  ent  Theology. 


consciousness,  whatever  liis  business  or  pursuit,  is  made  up  of 
a  continued  series  of  volitions.  There  is  no  jDOwer  in  our  pos¬ 
session,  or  exerted  by  us,  which  we  know  better  than  this — the 
power  to  will,  to  form  volitions.  Whatever  is  presented  to  us, 
as  something  to  be  done,  we  immediately  act  with  regard  to  it 
affirmatively  or  negatively,  or  by  holding  in  abeyance  for  a 
future  decision,  and  in  either  case  we  make  a  choice.  This  is 
the  invariable  first  form  of  our  action,  after  knowing  and  feel- 
ingr,  and  we  denominate  it  a  will  action,  or  willing:.  But  in 
itself  it  is  incomplete.  Following  there  must  be  an  action  exe¬ 
cuting  the  determination,  or  a  putting  forth  of  power  to  do  that 
which  we  have  chosen  or  decided  to  do.  To  this  we  give  the 
name  of  an  executive  volition — and  it  is  always  a  further  pro¬ 
jection  of  the  same  power  that  we  exerted  in  forming  the  de¬ 
termination  or  choice.  The  two  forms  often  stand  in  juxta¬ 
position — the  choice  to  do  and  the  executive  act  run  so  close 
together  that  they  seem  to  be  one ;  but  in  fact  they  are  not, 
since  the  determination  may  change  before  the  executive  act 
follows.  Many  times  they  are  separated  by  days.  The  deter¬ 
mination  is  that  an  act  shall  be  done  to-morrow,  or  next  year. 
When  the  time  comes,  if  we  still  adhere  to  the  previous  choice, 
we  complete  it  by  the  executive  volition.  This  double  facet 
of  the  will  is  a  generic  choice  and  all  the  consecutive  forth- 
puttings  of  power  to  achieve  it.  The  determination  to  go  on 
a  journey  is  followed  by  the  executive  volitions  included  in  its 
prosecution  to  the  end,  which  may  be  many  successive  discrete 
acts.  The  act  may  thus  be  a  ruling  permanent  purpose  formed, 
in  conformity  to  which  his  life  is  to  be  fashioned,  which  is  con¬ 
sidered  by  him  final  (it  may  be  amended),  but  while  it  holds 
the  voluntas  follows  in  all  the  consecutive  executive  acts  which 
realize  it.  In  both  the  original  purpose  and  the  subsequent 
forth-puttings  it  is  the  man  that  acts,  and  the  power  used  is  the 
will.  Everyone  is  conscious  of  the  accordance  of  this  statement 


What  is  Sin? 


77 


with,  his  own  experience.  By  will,  then,  we  mean  a  power 
which  we  possess  to  originate  choices  and  to  execute  them — or 
in  general,  as  defined  by  Dr.  Whedon:  “  It  is  that  power  of  the 
soul  (the  man)  hy  which  it  intentionally  originates  an  act  or  state 
of  being.  Or,  more  precisely,  will  is  the  power  of  the  soul  by 
which  it  is  the  conscious  author  of  an  intentional  act”  That  we 
possess  such  a  power,  and  constantly  use  it,  it  is  impossible  any 
man  should  doubt,  unless  he  has  acquired  the  power  to  doubt 
his  most  pronounced  consciousness.  To  doubt  the  existence  of 
the  power  is  to  doubt  the  existence  of  a  power  which  he  con¬ 
sciously  exercises  every  time  he  acts  as  an  intelligent  being. 

W e  do  not  yet  raise  the  question  of  freedom,  but  seek  simply 
to  define  a  power.  The  question  of  freedom  in  its  use  will  come 
directly.  Whenever  the  mind,  or,  rather,  the  man,  is  called  to 
act  as  a  will,  or  volitionally,  either  in  the  first  form,  choosing, 
or  in  the  second  form,  executing,  he  finds  himself  beleaguered 
by  a  variety  of  feelings  which  stand  in  such  proximity  to  his 
subsequent  will- act,  and  in  some  sort  so  resemble  it,  that  they 
are  not  always  distinguished,  though  upon  careful  analysis  they 
are  distinct  Want  of  careful  analysis  has  led  to  much  confu¬ 
sion  here.  No  better  illustration  of  this  can  be  given  than  is 
found  in  the  definition  of  the  will  by  the  elder  Edwards: 
“  Whatever  names  we  may  call  the  act  of  the  will  by — choos¬ 
ing,  refusing,  approving,  disapproving,  liking,  disliking,  em¬ 
bracing,  rejecting,  determining,  directing,  commanding,  forbid¬ 
ding,  inclining,  or  being  averse,  a  being  pleased  or  displeased 
with — all  may  be  reduced  to  this  of  choosing.” 

Nothing  is  more  plain  than  that  in  this  passage  there  is  a  group¬ 
ing  together  of  things  utterly  dissimilar,  some  of  which  belong  to 
the  will  properly  but  most  of  which  do  not.  Some  describe 
purely  acts  of  the  discriminating  faculty,  others  mere  feelings ; 
others  state  external  acts.  The  analysis  is  thus  made  by  Dr. 
Whedon :  “  Now,  of  the  above  terms,  in  order  to  a  greater 


78 


Studies  in  Theology. 


precision,  we  may  say,  1.  Approving,  disapproving,  coming  to  a 
conclusion  and  deciding  [deciding  may  refer  to  a  will  action  in 
the  sense  of  determining  to  do,  but  it  is  properly  a  concluding 
of  the  intellect  on  the  merits  of  a  case,  and  in  such  case  is 
not  a  will-act],  belong  more  properly  to  the  intellective  or 
moral  faculty ;  2.  Liking,  disliking,  inclining,  being  averse, 
being  pleased  with  or  displeased  with,  to  the  sensitive  nature ; 
8.  Choosing,  refusing,  rejecting,  determining,  sometimes  decid¬ 
ing,  to  the  will;  4.  Embracing,  directing,  commanding,  and 
forbidding,  to  external  acts.”  Evidently  among  all  these  terms 
the  only  ones  that  are  properly  predicable  of  the  will  are  those 
indicated :  choosing  ;  refusing — which  is  simple  choice  against ; 
rejecting — which  is  an  active  determination  not  to  choose  in 
favor  ;  determining — which  is  a  final  choice  to  do  or  not  to  do ; 
deciding — when  it  is  a  decision  to  do  or  not.  They  severally 
import  the  same  kind  of  action  in  some  form,  and  are  the  same 
use  of  the  same  power.  The  executive  volition  results  in  em¬ 
bracing,  directing,  commanding,  and  forbidding,  but  the  will-act 
is  causal  and  discrete  and  lies  back  of  this — in  the  soul  itself. 

Misuse  has  especially  been  made  of  the  words  desire,  prefer¬ 
ence,  disposition,  inclination,  pleasure,  which  invariably  come 
to  view  in  a  certain  class  of  authors  when  they  treat  of  lib¬ 
erty.  It  is  only  necessary  to  remember  that  these  are  predi¬ 
cates  of  feeling,  and  not  of  will.  They  may  be  supposed  to 
explain  the  grounds  of  an  act  of  will,  but  can  never  be  identi¬ 
cal  with  it.  Dr.  Whedon,  with  his  usual  discrimination,  says : 

“  Desire,  be  it  ever  so  intense,  never  becomes  volition  but  by  a 
distinct  movement  known  to  consciousness ;  and  no  action  can 
follow  until  volition  arises.  Desire  is  uneasy  and  stimulant ; 
will  is  decisive,  and  brings  all  the  mind  to  acquiescence.  Yet 
volition,  like  desire,  is  appetency  and  preference ;  it  is  a  con¬ 
scious  free  act  of  fixing  a  settlement  upon  its  object,  to  which 
it  brings  the  unity  of  the  man. 


What  is  Sin? 


79 


“Will  may  be  distinguished  from  desire  by  the  following 
points:  1.  Volition  is  consciously  distinct  in  nature  from  even 
the  culminating  desire.  It  is  felt  to  be  an  act — a  decisive 
movement — a  putting  forth  of  energy.  It  is  a  conscious  pro¬ 
jection,  from  interior  power,  of  action  upon  its  object.  Desire 
is  the  flowing  forth  of  appetency  for  an  object ;  volition  is  the 
putting  forth  of  action  upon  it.  2.  Volition  and  desire  differ 
in  their  objects.  Desire  is  an  appetency  for  some  perceived 
agreeable  quality  or  agreeable  thing  in  its  object.  The  object 
of  the  volition  is  the  post-volitional  act  which  it  effectuates. 
3.  We  can  conceive  a  being  full  of  coexisting  and  contending 
desires  and  emotions,  but  without  any  power  of  volition,  and  so 
hemmed  forever  into  a  circle  of  passivities.  4.  To  volition, 
and  not  to  any  other  mental  operation,  belong,  as  before  said, 
intention  and  motive.  This  peculiarity  alone  would  be  sufficient 
to  distinguish  volition  as  a  unique  operation  and  will  as  a 
special  faculty.  5.  There  is  no  mental  faculty  which  our  con¬ 
sciousness  so  identifies  with  the  self  as  the  will.  When  the  will 
governs  the  appetites  or  passions  we  naturally  say  that  the 
man  governs  them ;  when  they  govern  the  will  we  say  the  man 
is  governed  by  them.  6.  The  will  is  alone  that  power  by 
which  man  becomes  properly  an  agent  in  the  world.  It  is  the 
bridge  over  which  he  passes  in  his  active  power  to  produce 
effects,  according  to  design,  on  objects  around  him.  No  mat¬ 
ter  how  intense  or  powerful  may  be  his  other  feelings  or  facul¬ 
ties,  he  could  never  execute  any  projects,  shape  any  objects, 
or  make  any  history  which  he  could  call  intentionally  his  own, 
without  the  faculty  of  will.  7.  Upon  will  alone  primarily  rests 
from  above  the  iveight  of  moral  obligation.  And  surely  if,  of  all 
possible  events,  volition  alone  can  be  the  primary  object  of 
obligation,  it  ceases  to  be  an  arrogant  or  wonderful  claim  that  in 
volition  alone  should  exist  the  element  of  freedom.  The  necessi¬ 
tarian  allows  that  in  one  respect  at  any  rate  the  event  volition 


6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


is  absolutely  UNIQUE ;  it  is  sole  and  singular  among  things ;  the 
freedomist,  consequently,  only  claims  for  that  unique  super¬ 
structure,  responsibility ,  an  equivalently  unique  basis,  freedom . 
8.  It  is  a  fact  that,  while  among  all  thinkers  there  is  a  perfect 
unanimity  in  attributing  necessity  to  all  the  other  mental  opera¬ 
tions,  there  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  extensive  and  perpetu¬ 
ated  denial  of  necessity  in  the  volition.  The  necessitarian  is 
bound  to  account  for  both  this  unanimity  and  this  dissent.  Here, 
then,  is  a  distinction,  permanent  and  extensive,  between  desire 
and  volition.  The  desire  is  a  mental  operation  to  which  all 
thinkers  with  perfect  unanimity  ascribe  necessity ;  the  volitions 
are  a  mental  operation  in  which  all  deniers  of  necessity  affirm 
with  an  equal  unanimity  that  freedom  resides. 

“ Inclination  belongs  to  the  feelings,  and  not  so  properly 
either  to  the  intellect  or  the  will.  From  his  perception  of  an 
object  a  man  feels  inclined  to  choose  it  It  is  the  feelings  that 
incline ,  and  the  will  remains  quiescent  until  the  initiation  of 
the  choice.  ‘A  mere  inclination  to  a  thing,’  says  Dr.  South, 
‘is  not  properly  a  willing  of  that  thing.’ 

“  The  dispositions  are  the  feelings  viewed  in  relation  to  any 
particular  object  or  volition.  A  man  is  said  to  be  disposed  to 
an  object  or  act  when  his  feelings  are  favorable  to  it ;  indis¬ 
posed  when  they  are  the  reverse. 

“A  choice  is  always  a  volition,  but  of  a  particular  kind.  It 
is,  namely,  a  volition  by  which  the  agent  appropriates  to  him¬ 
self  one  of  a  class  of  objects  or  courses  of  action  on  account  of 
some  perceived  comparative  preferability  in  it.  I  choose,  that 
is,  appropriate  to  myself,  one  of  a  lot  of  apples,  because  I  see  it 
comparatively  most  eligible  or  preferable.  I  choose  one  of 
two  roads  at  a  fork  because  I  see  it  comparably  the  preferable. 
I  choose  from  among  professions  that  which  seems  compara¬ 
tively  most  eligible.  I  choose  Grod,  not  I  will  Grod.  I  choose 

virtue,  not  I  will  virtue.  Choice,  then,  is  an  appropriative,  com- 

6 


What  is  Sin? 


81 


parative  volition;  usually,  however,  including  also  the  exter¬ 
nal  act  By  it  I  will  one  of  several  things  to  be  mine.  To  say 
that  I  will  as  I  choose  is  simply  to  say  that  one  volition  is  as 
another  volition.  Definitions  which  make  a  choice  not  to  be  a 
volition  are  incorrect.  In  this  treatise  choice  and  volition  are 
used  interchangeably. 

u  To  please,  as  an  intransitive,  expresses  a  volition,  and 
■usually  signifies  to  ivill  authoritatively.  So  a  deity  or  an  auto¬ 
crat  pleases  that  a  thing  be  thus  or  so,  or  he  does  as  )iq  pleases. 
That  is,  he  does  as  he  authoritatively  wills,  chooses,  or  deter¬ 
mines. 

“To  purpose  is  to  will,  to  determine,  predetermine,  or 
resolve  that  something  shall  be  willed  or  done  at  a  future  time. 
I  now  will  or  purpose  to  go  to  the  city  to-morrow.  A  pur¬ 
pose  wills  or  predetermines  now  that  perhaps  an  immense 
number  of  volitions  shall  take  place.  A  volition  thus  com¬ 
prehensive  of  many  volitions,  to  which  they  more  or  less  con¬ 
form,  may  be  called  a  standard  purpose.  This  comprehensive 
purpose  resolves  the  mind  into  a  state  of  permanent  determina¬ 
tion.  A  man  may  act  in  view  of  one  great  life  purpose. 

“  The  preference  is  a  recognition  by  the  intellect  that  a  given 
object  or  course  is,  on  some  account,  or  upon  the  whole,  rather 
to  be  chosen  than,  or  held  in  some  way  superior  to,  another 
with  which  it  is  compared.  When  a  man  on  some  account 
intellectually  prefers  an  object  he  generally  has  a  feeling  of 
inclination  to  choose  it  Nevertheless  there  mav  be  coexistent 

t / 

with  this  preference  an  opposing  inclination  on  some  other 
account,  in  favor  of  which  the  will  may  decide.  Opposite  dis¬ 
positions  and  desires  may,  and  often  do,  coexist  in  the  same 
mind.  Different  affections,  operations,  and  forces  may  exist 
within  the  soul  and  at  the  same  instant  fluctuate  and  struggle 
for  mastery.  This  agitation  might  last  forever  had  man,  as 
previously  said,  no  faculty  of  will.  He  would  be  like  the 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


troubled  sea  that  cannot  rest.  It  is  by  volition  that  the  facul¬ 
ties  are  brought  to  unity  and  settlement. 

u  Nevertheless  to  the  will  also  belongs  a  preferential  state. 
When  a  volition  has  resolved  the  will  into  a  settled  purpose 
that  at  the  proper  time  it  will  give  a  particular  volition,  or 
adopt  a  certain  cause  or  object,  then  so  long  the  will  perma¬ 
nently  prefers  that  volition  course  or  object  to  a  diverse. 

“  The  term  indifference  was  often  used  by  the  old  writers  on 
the  freedom  of  the  will  in  a  technical  sense.  In  ordinary 
language  it  now  refers  to  the  feelings  as  being  wholly  without 
inclination  for  or  against  an  object  But  as  in  the  feelings 
there  may  be  no  inclination,  so  in  the  will  there  may  be  no 
volition ;  and  until  the  will  chooses,  or  differentiates,  there  is 
an  indifference,  nondifferentiation,  or  quiescence.  Whatever 
may  be  the  coexisting  and  struggling  or  fluctuating  inclina¬ 
tions  and  preferences,  the  will  does  not  differentiate  until  it 
volitionates,  chooses,  or  wills. 

“  Consequent  upon  the  interior  volitional  act  performed  by 
the  will  is  the  external  voluntary  act  performed  by  the  body, 
obeying  and  executing  the  imperative  volition.  Yet  it  is  not 
the  body  and  the  limbs  alone  which  obediently  execute  the 
determinations  of  the  interior  self  through  the  will.  The  mind 
also  in  its  operations,  intellective  and  emotional,  is  more  or 
less  under  the  will’s  control.  To  trace  how  complete  this  par¬ 
tial  volitional  control  over  the  body  or  mind  is,  is  not  our  pres¬ 
ent  purpose. 

“The  intention  of  an  act,  volitional  or  voluntary,  objectively, 
is  the  result  had  in  view  to  be  produced  by  the  act.  This 
result  may  be  immediate,  or  more  or  less  remote.  Of  the 
same  act  the  intentions  may  be  stated  with  a  great  variety. 
Thus  an  archer  draws  his  bow.  His  intention  is  the  discharge 
of  an  arrow.  That  is,  such  is  the  immediate  result  imaged 
and  intended  in  his  mind.  But,  more  remotely,  his  purpose  is 


W hat  is  Sin  ? 


83 


that  the  arrow  pierce  the  body  of  a  stag.  Still  further  remote, 
there  are  other  and  other  successive  intentions ;  and  it  is  diffi¬ 
cult  to  ascertain,  often,  the  ultimate  intention  of  an  act  or  voli¬ 
tion.  For  the  intention,  near,  remote,  and  ultimate,  whether 
accomplished  or  not,  the  agent  is  responsible.  For  all  the 
legitimately  calculable  consequences  the  agent  is  responsible. 
How  far  even  for  any  consequence  of  a  deliberately  wicked  act 
an  agent  may  be  responsible  is  debatable,  since  he  who 
breaks  law  is  fairly  warned  by  his  own  reason  that  he  indorses 
disorder,  and  so  makes  any  disastrous  consequence  legitimate 
and  responsible. 

“  Suppose,  however,  that,  without  any  culpable  want  of  care, 
the  arrow  of  the  archer,  missing  its  aim,  is  so  deflected  by 
some  object  as  to  hit  and  slay  his  prince.  At  once  it  is  seen 
no  responsibility  for  the  result  accrues.  He  is  irresponsible 
just  because  this  result  was  not  intended;  that  is,  framed  in 
his  conception  as  that  which  he,  as  a  volitional  agent,  exerted 
his  power  to  bring  into  existence.  Though  partially  an  effect 
by  him  caused,  that  result  comes  upon  him  as  unconceivedly 
as  a  lightning  flash  darting  across  his  path.  For  the  concep¬ 
tion  unsanctioned  by  the  volition,  and  for  the  result  uncon¬ 
ceived  and  unintended ,  yet  accomplished,  there  is  really  no 
responsibility. 

“  As  the  intellect,  the  emotions,  and  desires  conditionally 
precede  the  volition,  so  we  may  call  these  th q  prevolitional  con¬ 
ditions.  The  act  of  body  or  mind  which  follows  as  a  conse¬ 
quent  of  the  volition  obeying  its  power  and  executing  its 
requirements  may  therefore  be  called  joostvolitional ;  so  that 
the  position  of  the  act  of  will  is  with  great  precision  identified. 
The  willing  act  is  adjectively  called  volitional;  the  consequent 
act  of  body  or  mind  is  called  voluntary.  When  an  athlete 
strikes  a  blow  his  willing  the  blow  is  a  volitional ,  and  the 

sical  motion  of  the  arm  which  obeys  and  executes  his  voli- 

6 


84 


Studies  in  Theology. 


tion  is  a  voluntary  act.  So  that  we  have  the  prevolitional ,  the 
volitional ,  and  postvolitional  or  voluntary  operations  as  the  sum 
total  of  all  human  affections  and  activities. 

“The  occasional  confounding  of  the  terms  volitional  and  vol¬ 
untary,  and  the  transfer  of  the  latter  from  the  postvolitional 
act  to  the  volition  itself,  is  the  source  of  some  error  and 
some  unintentional  sophisms.  Thus  Dr.  Pond,  in  the  Biblio¬ 
theca  Sacra ,  says :  ‘  If  we  originate  our  own  voluntary  exer¬ 
cises  we  must  do  it  voluntarily  or  involuntarily.  If  we  do  it 
involuntarily  there  is  nothing  gained  certainly  on  the  score  of 
freedom.  There  can  be  no  freedom  or  voluntariness  in  an 
involuntary  act  of  origination  more  than  there  is  in  the  beating 
of  the  heart.  But  if  we  originate  our  own  voluntary  exercises 
voluntarily,  this  is  the  same  as  saying  that  we  originate  one 
voluntary  exercise  by  another,  which  runs  into  the  same  ab¬ 
surdity  as  before.’  To  this  we  may  for  the  present  reply  that, 
as  the  terms  voluntary  and  involuntary  are  predicable  only 
of  the  external  actions  in  reference  to  the  will,  the  volitions 
are  neither  voluntary  nor  involuntary,  but  volitional.  They 
are  not  intrinsically,  as  free,  the  product  of  a  previous  volition ; 
nor  in  that  does  their  freedom  consist.  What  their  freedom 
does  imply  appears  in  the  proper  place  by  our  definition. 

“  The  younger  Edwards,  in  his  remarks  on  his  father’s  Im¬ 
provements  in  Theology ,  has  the  expression,  L  such  volitions 
being,  by  the  very  signification  of  the  term  itself,  voluntary.’ 
A  voluntary  volition  is  impossible.  So  on  the  same  page  he 
uses  the  term  spontaneity ,  not,  evidently,  as  Webster  defines  it, 
to  signify  voluntariness ,  but  as  the  abstract  of  volition,  volition- 
ality. 

“  WTien  we  say  that  the  will  wills  we  really  mean  that  the 
entire  soul,  or  self,  wills.  It  is  the  man  who  wills,  and  his 
will  is  simply  his  power,  or  being  able,  to  will.  And  the  free 
will  is  really  the  man  free  in  willing.  So  it  is  the  man,  the 


What  is  Sin? 


85 


soul,  the  self,  that  perceives,  feels,  and  thinks.  The  faculties 
are  not  so  many  divisions  of  the  soul  itself,  but  rather  so  many 
classes  of  the  soul’s  operations,  and  the  soul  viewed  as  capable 
of  being  the  subject  of  them.  And  as  in  volition  the  whole 
soul  is  the  will,  and  in  thinking  the  whole  soul  is  the  intellect, 
so  it  follows  that  the  will  is  intelligent,  and  the  intelligence  is 
volitional.  When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  will,  we  speak  not 
of  a  separate,  blind,  unintelligent  agent,  but  of  the  whole  intel¬ 
ligent  soul  engaged  in  and  capable  of  volitional  actions.  It  is 
in  no  way  a  separate  substance  or  agent.” 

From  all  which  it  appears  that  of  the  word  will,  or  in  answer 
to  the  question,  What  is  will?  it  must  be  said  that  in  one 
facet  it  is  that  power  which  a  man  possesses  by  which  he  origi¬ 
nates  acts  of  choice,  or  by  the  use  of  which  he  chooses,  deter¬ 
mines,  decides,  elects  the  equivalent  of  choice  or  choices  ;  and  in 
the  other  facet  it  is  that  by  which  man  originates  actions  de¬ 
signed  to  realize  the  ends  of  choice — the  fountain  of  efficiency  for 
making  real  the  thing  chosen.  In  the  cardinal  and  most  funda¬ 
mental  sense  willing  is  choosing ;  and,  as  declared  at  the  outset, 
it  is  that  which  we  do,  showing  that  we  both  possess  and  use 
power  almost  every  moment  of  waking  consciousness,  and  the 
which  is  the  antecedent  subjective  act  of  every  objective  act, 
of  all  the  things  we  do,  in  the  external  activity  of  life,  except 
such  as  are  purely  automatic  or  instinctive.  Thus  having 
found  what  we  mean  by  will,  and  also  willing,  wre  come  now  to 
inquire  for  the  conditions  of  the  use  or  exercise  of  this  power. 

A  will-act  is  never  originated  or  executed  without  something 
as  an  end  or  occasion,  existing  in  the  apprehension  of  the  intel¬ 
lect  or  in  the  sensibility  moving  thereto.  These  states  must 
exist  as  grounds  or  conditions  of  volitional  activity,  but  not 
as  causes.  Nothing  can  be  presented  to  the  mind  to  elicit  its 
will  action  that  has  not  its  possible  alternative  suggested  by  it. 
The  emotions  of  whatever  kind  which  objects  awaken  in  us 


86 


Studies  in  Theology. 


are  neither  originated  by  the  will  nor  subject  directly  to  it. 
They  are  natural  and  necessitated  effects.  Objects  addressing 
our  reason  either  through  sensation,  or  reflection,  or  intuition, 
necessitate  belief  or  cognition  of  some  kind,  as,  for  example, 
that  they  are  real  or  unreal,  true  or  false,  or  indeterminable,  or 
proper  objects  of  inquiry.  These  effects  are  independent  of 
volitional  activity.  Objects  addressing  our  sensibility  excite 
desire  and  occasion  admiration,  wonder,  astonishment,  or 
awaken  emotions  of  joy  or  sorrow,  pain  or  pleasure,  hope  or 
fear.  Objects  addressing  the  conscience  or  moral  reason  origi¬ 
nate  the  sense  of  duty,  of  the  ought  or  ought  not.  These 
effects  are  independent  of  any  direct  power  of  will  we  possess, 
and  do  not  suppose  any  volitional  activity.  We  are  passive 
in  them,  and  they  are  to  be  attributed  to  our  peculiar  consti¬ 
tution.  These  necessitated  effects,  however,  so  soon  as  they 
are  produced  solicit  an  action  of  the  will,  and  may  make  some 
form  of  volitional  activity  inevitable.  They  suggest  ends — 
something  to  be  chosen,  or  something  to  be  done — which  in 
either  case  demands  an  exercise  of  the  will.  Thus  they  are 
motives  or  a  motive  to  volitional  activity. 

Do  they  necessitate  the  precise  volition  which  ensues  ?  To 
this  there  are  two  utterly  opposing  answers.  Necessitarians 
insist  that  there  is  a  clear  and  causal  connection  between  the 
excitant  and  the  precise  volition  which  follows.  Freedomists 
deny  this,  and  assert  that  an  action  of  the  will  may  be  necessi¬ 
tated,  but  not  some  particular  act ;  that  is,  when  an  object  is 
presented  which  excites  desire,  or  awakens  a  sense  of  duty, 
it  may  be  inevitable  that  some  will-act  should  take  place, 
either  choosing  or  refusing,  obeying  or  disobeying ;  but  they 
insist  that  it  may  be  either  this  or  that,  and  the  determination 
which  of  the  possible  it  shall  be  is  in  the  power  of  the  actor, 
and  not  a  mere  effect  of  the  excitant.  In  the  realm  of  the 
will  it  asserts  man  is  a  free  cause. 


What  is  Sin? 


87 


It  is  so  severe  a  strain  on  any  system  to  deny  freedom  tliat 
necessitarians  are  generally  solicitous  to  escape  the  charge,  and 
every  dialectic  art  is  resorted  to  for  that  purpose.  They  claim 
to  be  freedomists,  and  are  loud  in  complaints  when  the  logic  of 
their  system  is  forced  upon  them.  They  invent  definitions  of 
freedom  and  fate  or  necessity,  and  show  that  they  hold  to  the 
one  and  deny  the  other,  and  then  declare  it  a  slander  and  mis¬ 
representation  to  expose  the  fallacy  and  refuse  them  the  benefit 
of  their  dexterous  use  of  words.  It  hence  becomes  important 
that  the  words  should  be  clearly  defined.  Each  word,  as 
applied  to  different  objects,  has  different  shades  of  meaning, 
and  words  require  to  be  expressed  in  different  terms  ;  but  each 
also  has  a  fundamental  sense  which  will  be  found  in  every 
possible  case  in  which  it  can  be  employed.  Necessitarianism 
is  used  interchangeably  with  fatalism  and  determinism.  In 
the  ultimate  result  they  mean  precisely  the  same  thing-— they 
differ  in  the  method  of  accounting  for  events,  but  in  every 
form  the  doctrine  is  that  every  event  that  ever  has  occurred 
had  not  only  an  antecedent  cause  which  made  it  inevitable, 
but  also  the  cause  was  powerless  to  any  other  result.  Thus 
inevitability  reigns  and  must  forever  reign  throughout  the 
whole  realm  of  being  and  events;  nothing  is,  has  been,  or  will 
be,  that  might  have  been  otherwise,  or  that  might  not  have 
been,  and  nothing  is  possible  that  has  not  been  or  will  not  be. 
Each  immediate  antecedent  is  potent  cause  of  the  effect  it 
produces,  itself  being  an  effect  of  a  like  potent  cause,  and  so 
on  back  along  an  infinite  chain,  or  up  to  some  reigning  origi¬ 
nal  fate  which  locks  all  in  the  chain  of  inevitable  sequence ;  or 
if  not  some  blind  fate,  then  Grod,  who  by  the  mystery  of  an 
eternal  decree  accomplished  the  same  end.  We  have  said 
that  there  are  diverse  methods  of  explaining  the  result,  but 
the  result  is  the  same. 

The  various  schemes  may  be  classed  as,  first,  the  doctrine  of 

6 


88 


Studies  in  Theology. 


fatalism,  which  teaches  that  all  events  are  determined  by  a 
blind  necessity.  This  necessity  does  not  arise  from  the  will 
of  a  person,  but  from  a  law  of  sequence  dominating  Grod  as 
well  as  men.  Things  are  as  they  are,  and  could  not  be  other¬ 
wise. 

The  second  form  of  the  doctrine  is  the  mechanical  theory. 
This  is  thus  defined  by  Dr.  Hodge:  “This  denies  that  man  is 
the  efficient  cause  of  his  own  acts.  It  represents  him  as  pas¬ 
sive,  or  as  endowed  with  no  higher  form  of  activity  than  spon¬ 
taneity.  It  avowedly  precludes  the  idea  of  responsibility.  It 
assumes  that  the  inward  state  of  man,  and  consequently  his 
acts,  are  determined  by  his  outward  circumstances.  This  doc¬ 
trine  as  connected  with  the  materialism  of  Hobbes,  Hartley, 
Priestley,  Belsham,  and  especially  as  fully  developed  by  the 
French  encyclopedists,  supposes  that  from  the  constitution  of 
our  nature  some  things  give  us  pain,  others  pleasure;  some 
excite  desire,  and  others  aversion ;  and  that  this  susceptibility 
of  being  acted  upon  is  all  the  activity  which  belongs  to  man, 
who  is  as  purely  a  piece  of  living  mechanism  as  the  irrational 
animals.  A  certain  external  object  produces  a  corresponding 
impression  on  the  nerves  that  is  transmitted  to  the  brain,  and 
an  answering  impulse  is  sent  back  to  the  muscles,  or  the  effect 
is  spent  in  the  brain  itself  in  the  form  of  thought  or  feeling 
thereby  excited  or  evolved.  The  general  features  of  this 
theory  are  the  same  so  far  as  its  adherents  ignore  any  distinc¬ 
tion  between  physical  and  moral  necessity,  and  reject  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  free  agency  and  responsibility,  however  much  they 
may  differ  on  other  points.”* 

The  materialistic  fatalist  finds  absolute  necessity  reigning  in 
matter — a  flow  of  inevitable  sequences.  He  denies  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  spirit,  and  volitional  phenomena  is  only  more  obscure 
but  in  no  respect  different  from  the  rest.  A  volition  differs 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  281. 


a 


What  is  Sin? 


89 


nothing  from  a  crystallization  or  secretion — each  is  a  result  of 
the  only  possible  material  law,  or  interaction  of  physical 
forces.  One  effect,  the  only  possible,  follows  another  in  end¬ 
less  series.  Necessity  thus  being  universal  and  eternal,  no  man 
in  a  lifetime  can  take  one  step  less  or  more  than  actually  is 
taken,  or  vary  in  word  or  thought  or  deed  any  more  than 
a  planet  or  atom  could  release  itself  from  gravitation.  In  a 
word,  since  the  universe  began  there  has  not  been  a  single  stir 
of  any  kind,  nor  an  atom  of  movement  or  change,  that  might 
not  have  been,  or  that  might  have  been  in  any  way  different. 

We  quote  further  from  Dr.  Hodge:  “A  third  form  of  neces¬ 
sity  includes  all  those  theories  which  supersede  the  efficiency 
of  second  causes,  by  referring  all  events  to  the  immediate 
agency  of  the  first  cause.  This,  of  course,  is  done  by  panthe¬ 
ism  in  all  its  forms,  whether  it  merely  makes  God  the  soul  of 
the  world,  and  refers  all  the  operations  of  nature  and  all  the 
actions  of  men  to  his  immediate  agency,  or  whether  it  regards 
the  world  itself  as  God,  or  wThether  it  makes  God  the  only  sub¬ 
stance  of  which  nature  and  mind  are  the  phenomena.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  all  these  views  God  is  the  only  agent ;  all  activity  is  but 
different  modes  in  which  the  activity  of  God  manifests  itself. 

“  The  theory  of  occasional  causes  leads  to  the  same  result. 
According  to  this  doctrine  all  efficiency  is  in  God.  Second 
causes  are  only  the  occasions  on  which  that  efficiency  is  ex¬ 
erted.  Although  this  system  allows  a  real  existence  to  matter 
and  mind,  and  admits  that  they  are  endowed  with  certain  qual¬ 
ities  and  attributes,  yet  these  are  nothing  more  than  suscepti¬ 
bilities  or  receptivities  for  the  manifestation  of  divine  efficiency. 
They  furnish  the  occasions  for  the  exercise  of  the  all-pervading 
power  of  God.  Matter  and  mind  are  alike  passive;  all  the 
changes  in  the  one,  and  all  the  appearances  of  activity  in  the 
other,  are  due  to  God’s  immediate  operation. 


90 


Studies  ix  Theology. 


of  God  in  tlie  preservation  of  the  world  is  a  continuous  creation. 
This  mode  of  representation  is,  indeed,  often  adopted  as  a  figure 
of  speech  by  orthodox  theologians ;  but  if  taken  literally  it  im¬ 
plies  the  absolute  inefficiency  of  second  causes.  If  God  creates 
the  outward  world  at  every  successive  moment  he  must  be  the 
immediate  author  of  all  its  changes.  There  is  no  connection 
between  what  precedes  and  what  follows,  between  antecedent 
and  consequent,  cause  and  effect,  but  succession  in  time ;  and 
when  applied  to  the  inward  world  the  same  consequence,  of 
necessity,  follows.  The  soul,  at  any  given  moment,  exists  only 
in  a  certain  state ;  if  in  that  state  it  is  created,  then  the  cre¬ 
ative  energy  is  the  immediate  cause  of  all  its  feelings,  cogni¬ 
tions,  and  acts.  The  soul  is  not  an  agent ;  it  is  only  something 
which  God  creates  in  a  given  form.  All  continuity  of  being, 
all  identity,  all  efficiency,  are  lost ;  and  the  universe  of  matter 
and  mind  become  nothing  more  than  the  continuous  pulsations 
of  the  life  of  God.” 

To  this  class  belong  the  so-called  advanced  scientists  of  the 
day.  “  They  are  agreed  that  there  is  no  freedom.  A  man  is 
what  the  environment  has  made  him,  and  his  action  is  a  neces¬ 
sary  resultant  of  the  forces  which  play  upon  him.  A  man’s 
goodness  or  badness  is  entirely  beyond  his  control.  The 
former  depends  on  happy  antecedents  and  on  moral  physiolog¬ 
ical  action  ;  the  latter  depends  on  unhappy  antecedents  and  on 
abnormal  physiological  action.  There  is  as  much  guilt  in  hav¬ 
ing  a  clubfoot  as  a  disposition  to  murder. 

“  Nearly  allied  with  the  doctrine  of  continued  causation  is 

the  ‘  exercise  scheme.’  According  to  this  theory  the  soul  is  a 

series  of  exercises  created  by  God.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 

the  soul,  no  self,  but  only  certain  perceptions  which  succeed 

each  other  with  amazing  rapidity.  Hume  denies  any  real 

cause.  All  we  know  is  that  these  perceptions  exist,  and  exist 

in  succession.  Emmons  says  God  creates  them.  It  is,  of 
6 


What  is  Sin? 


91 


course,  in  vain  to  speak  of  the  liberty  in  producing  the  creative 
acts  of  God.  If  he  create  our  volitions  in  view  of  motives 
they  are  his  acts,  and  not  ours.  The  difference  between  this 
system  and  pantheism  is  little  more  than  nominal.”* 

Now,  all  these  systems  are  necessitarian ;  why  ?  Is  it  not 
simply  because  they,  alike  and  equally,  but  in  diverse  methods, 
make  it  impossible  that  any  event  should  be  introduced  into 
the  series,  or  any  event  left  out,  by  any  power  of  man,  or  any 
other  agent  below  the  primal  cause  ?  The  possibility  of  some¬ 
thing  other  is  precluded  ;  the  occurrence  of  the  series  is  fixed 
in  inevitability.  This  is  necessity,  and  any  theory  which 
insures  the  same  result  is  of  the  same  essence,  however  it  may 
differ  from  these  in  method  ;  and  whatever  invalidation  comes 
to  these  on  the  ground  of  necessity  or  fatalism  must  invalidate 
every  other  which  includes  the  principle.  Any  system,  to 
escape,  must  provide  for  an  agency  which  is  able  to  break  in 
on  the  series  and  from  itself  originate  free  acts ;  that  is,  acts 
which  no  causations  out  of  themselves  render  inevitable.  The 
advocates  of  the  theories  named,  themselves,  admit  that  they 
do  away  with  freedom,  that  the  acts  of  man  are  absolutely 
necessitated ;  and  they  accept  the  sequence  that  man  is  an  irre¬ 
sponsible  being.  They  are  so  manifestly  in  violent  contraven¬ 
tion  of  all  right  thinking,  of  consciousness  itself,  that  their 
following  has  been  limited  to  a  few  speculative  minds,  and  the 
reasonings  and  conclusions  are  so  weak  and  inconsequent  that 
they  are  innocuous,  and  may  be  safely  left  to  perish  of  their 
intrinsic  impotence.  But  there  is  another  theory  which,  de¬ 
spite  the  brave  and  persistent  denial  of  its  advocates  and  their 
resolute  and  dexterous  efforts  to  rescue  it  from  the  odium, 
we  shall  be  compelled  to  place  in  the  same  category,  and 
which  will  require  a  more  extended  examination.  It  scarcely 
need  be  said  we  refer  to  the  system  known  as  Augustinian  or 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  281. 


92 


Studies  in  Tp;eology. 


Calvinian  theology.  The  peculiar  exigencies  of  that  system 
involve  the  question  of  freedom  directly,  and,  as  we  shall  be 
able  to  show,  abolish  the  possibility  of  it.  Dr.  Hodge,  from 
whom  we  have  given  such  extended  extracts,  is  its  latest  and 
most  admired  and  ingenious  expounder.  If  it  had  been  pos¬ 
sible  to  evade  the  charge  his  great  ability  and  distinguished 
polemical  skill  would  have  accomplished  the  task  ;  but,  despite 
all,  and  notwithstanding  the  nervous  and  sensitive  aversion  to 
necessitarian  schemes  and  earnest  espousal  of  freedomistic 
nomenclature  everywhere  pervading  his  discussion,  it  will  be 
found  that  he  has  signally  failed,  and  must  be  written  down, 
from  the  theology  he  has  devoted  his  life  to  teaching,  a  de¬ 
fender  of  the  odious  doctrine  of  necessity,  or  a  doctrine  of 
freedom  which  differs  from  necessity  only  in  name.  In  sum¬ 
ming  up,  at  the  close  of  his  very  able  discussion,  he  says: 
“The  doctrine  of  free  agency,  therefore,  which  underlies  the 
Bible,  which  is  involved  in  the  consciousness  of  every  rational 
being,  and  which  is  assumed  and  acted  on  by  all  men,  is  at  an 
equal  remove  on  the  one  hand  from  physical  or  mechanical 
necessity,  which  precludes  the  possibility  of  liberty  and  respon¬ 
sibility,  and,  on  the  other,  from  the  doctrine  of  contingency, 
which  assumes  that  an  act  in  order  to  be  free  must  be  uncer¬ 
tain,  or  that  the  will  is  self-determined,  acting  independently 
of  the  reason,  conscience,  inclination,  and  feelings.  It  teaches 
that  a  man  is  a  free  and  responsible  agent  because  he  is  author 
of  his  own  acts,  and  because  he  is  determined  to  act  by  noth¬ 
ing  out  of  himself  [it  will  be  hard  to  reconcile  this  state¬ 
ment  with  words  which  we  shall  soon  quote  from  this  author], 
but  by  his  own  views,  convictions,  inclinations,  feelings,  and 
disposition,  so  that  his  acts  are  the  true  products  of  the  man 
and  really  represent  or  reveal  what  he  is.”  The  profoundest  of 
modern  authors  admit  that  this  is  the  true  theory  of  liberty, 

but  some  of  them,  as,  for  instance,  Muller,  in  his  elaborate 

6 


What  is  Sin? 


93 


■work  on  “Sin,”  maintain  that,  in  order  to  render  men  justly 
responsible  for  the  acts  which,  are  thus  determined  by  their 
internal  state  or  character,  that  state  must  itself  be  self -pro¬ 
duced.  “  This  doctrine  has  been  sufficiently  discussed  when 
treating  of  original  sin.  It  may,  however,  be  remarked,  in 
conclusion  of  the  present  discussion,  that  the  principle  assumed 
is  contrary  to  the  common  judgment  of  men.  That  judgment 
is  that  the  dispositions  and  feelings  which  constitute  character 
derive  their  morality  or  immorality  from  their  nature,  and  not 
from  their  origin.  Malignity  is  evil  and  love  is  good,  whether 
concreated,  innate,  acquired,  or  infused.  A  malignant  being  is 
an  evil  being,  if  endowed  with  reason,  whether  he  was  so 
made  or  so  born.  And  a  benevolent  rational  being  is  good, 
in  the  universal  judgment  of  men,  whether  he  was  so  created 
or  so  born."*  This  statement  recurs  again  and  again  in  Dr. 
Hodge  and  all  other  Calvinistic  authors.  If  it  mean  anything 
it  means  that  a  man  may  be  guilty  without  his  action — that  it 
may  come  to  him  by  inheritance.  We  deny.  The  thing  is 
impossible,  and  is  shown  so  to  be  in  the  discussion  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  original  sin. 

“It  is  better  to  abide  by  the  general  statement,  the  will  is 
not  determined  by  any  law  of  necessity ;  it  is  not  independent, 
indifferent,  or  self-determined,  but  is  always  determined  by  the 
preceding  state  of  mind ;  so  that  a  man  is  free  so  long  as  his 
volitions  are  the  conscious  expression  of  his  own  mind,  or  so 
long  as  his  activity  is  determined  and  controlled  by  his  reason 
and  feeling."!  In  another  place,  defining  his  own  position, 
he  says :  “  The  third  general  theory  on  this  subject  is  sepa¬ 
rated  by  an  equal  distance  from  the  doctrine  of  necessity  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  that  of  contingency  on  the  other.  It 
teaches  that  a  man  is  free,  not  only  when  his  outward  acts  are 
determined  by  his  will,  but  when  his  volitions  are  truly  and 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  307,  308.  f  Ibid.,  p.  288. 

6 


94 


Studies  is  Theology. 


properly  his  own,  determined  by  nothing  out  of  himself,  but 
proceeding  from  his  own  views,  feelings,  and  innermost  dis¬ 
positions,  so  that  they  are  the  real,  intelligent,  and  conscious 
expression  of  his  character,  or  of  what  is  in  his  mind.” 
Again :  “  When  we  say  that  an  agent  is  self-determined  we 
say  two  things :  1.  That  he  is  the  author  or  efficient  cause  of 
his  own  acts.  2.  That  the  grounds  or  reasons  of  his  determi¬ 
nation  are  within  himself.  He  is  determined  by  what  consti¬ 
tutes  him  at  the  moment  a  particular  individual,  his  feelings, 
principles,  character,  dispositions ;  and  not  by  an  ab-extra  or 
coercive  influence.”  Again  :  “It  may,  however,  be  remarked 
that  there  is  no  difficulty  attending  the  doctrine  of  foreordina¬ 
tion  which  does  not  attach  to  foreknowledge.  The  latter  sup¬ 
poses  the  certainty  of  the  acts,  and  the  former  secures  the  cer¬ 
tainty.  If,  then,  being  certain  be  consistent  with  liberty,  being 
rendered  certain  cannot  be  incompatible  with  it.  All  that  fore¬ 
ordination  does  is  to  render  it  certain  that  free  acts  shall  occur. 
.  .  .  Foreknowledge  supposes  certainty;  foreordination  de¬ 
termines  it,  and  Providence  effects  it.”  * 

These  definitions  are  carefully  drawn  to  make  the  offensive 
doctrine  as  little  objectionable  as  possible.  They  might,  with 
slight  modification,  be  adopted  by  freedomists ;  but  they  dex¬ 
terously  hide  as  pure  necessitarianism,  as  if  they  had  said,  in  so 
many  words,  “Man  wills  as  he  wills,  and  is  as  powerless  to  will 
otherwise  as  the  piston  is  powerless  to  resist  the  steam.”  In 
this  statement  wTe  see  the  doctrine ;  in  the  other  it  is  disguised. 
This  is  the  thing  the  system  contains,  and  wffiieh  its  advocates 
must  defend  or  abandon,  and  it  is  neither  ingenuous  nor  loyal 
to  truth  to  attempt  to  obscure  it  and  retain  it.  If  it  be  true, 
the  plainer  the  statement  the  better ;  if  it  be  false,  let  it  not  be 
smuggled  into  the  teaching  under  false  or  misleading  names. 

Several  things  are  noticeable  throughout  the  discussion  of 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  2S1,  295,  SOI. 


6 


What  is  Sin? 


95 


this  subject  by  Dr.  Hodge :  be  has  profited  by  former  contro¬ 
versies,  and  -with  great  adroitness  seeks  to  escape  the  errors  of 
former  advocates ;  bis  definitions  are  more  cautious ;  be  finds  a 
function  for  self-determination ;  be  evinces  a  slightly  improved 
idea  of  freedom,  but  after  all  finds  it  impossible  to  escape  tbe 
maelstrom  which  has  engulfed  all  bis  predecessors.  His  most 
dexterous  feat  is  tbe  adroit  change  of  tbe  issue  between  tbe 
parties  in  tbe  controversy.  He  wages  war  against  several 
forms  of  necessitarianism,  and  by  adopting  tbe  nomenclature 
of  freedomists,  and  their  general  postulates,  be  seems  to  be  a 
champion  of  liberty  against  necessity ;  thus  at  tbe  same  time 
lulling  suspicion  and  winning  favor.  Tbe  real  trend  of  tbe 
difficulties  of  bis  theological  position  is  smoothed  over  or 
avoided.  He  makes  tbe  question  in  dispute  between  him  and 
genuine  freedomists  to  be  a  question  about  certainty;  and 
then,  with  spread  of  learning,  proceeds  to  show  that  certainty 
does  not.  interfere  with  liberty,  that  certainty  is  not  necessity, 
that  things  may  be  certain  and  yet  free — as  if  this  were  tbe 
question  in  dispute.  Tbe  word  contingency,  as  conspicuously 
used  in  tbe  old  discussion,  gives  him  bis  cue.  Tbe  idea  of  a 
possible  something  different  be  adroitly  makes  to  mean  a  total 
uncertainty  of  events,  and  gives  that  as  tbe  fundamental  issue. 
But  this  is  not  at  all  tbe  view  held  on  tbe  subject  by  tbe  class 
of  freedomists  to  which  it  was  important  be  should  give  atten¬ 
tion.  They,  no  less  than  be,  bold  that  whatever  will  be  was 
certain  from  eternity,  certain  in  fact  and  certain  in  tbe  divine 
knowledge,  but  tbe  ground  of  tbe  certainty  was  not  tbe  impos¬ 
sibility  of  tbe  opposite.  They  bold  that  in  every  case  in  which 
tbe  action  of  a  free  will  is  concerned  the  precise  opposite 
might  have  been,  and  then  tbe  certainty  would  have  been  dif¬ 
ferent  That  it  is  as  it  is  is  simply  because  wills  are  as  they 
are,  but  not  because  it  was  impossible  they  should  be  other¬ 
wise.  Tbe  theory  is  as  far  from  contingency,  in  tbe  sense  of 


96 


Studies  in  Theology. 


may  not  be,  as  it  is  from  necessity.  The  fact  that  an  event 
will  certainly  occur,  or  the  fact  that  it  is  foreknown,  neither 
necessitates  its  occurrence  nor  proves  that  it  was  so  fixed 
beforehand,  nor  so  inevitable  at  the  time,  that  it  might  not 
have  been  different.  This  the  freedomist  has  a  right  to  hold, 
and  in  the  absence  of  it  there  can  be  no  true  freedom ;  but  it 
is  what  no  Augustinian  can  hold,  and  it  is  what  Dr.  Hodge 
does  not  hold,  and  for  the  want  of  which  he  finds  himself  inex¬ 
tricably  in  the  coils  of  necessity.  In  answer  to  the  question  : 
“Can  a  man  in  the  exact  environments  put  forth  a  volition 
different  from  the  one  he  does  put  forth  ?  ”  he  must  and  does 
answer,  Ho  ;  and  yet  he  declares  the  will  is  free.  The  ground 
of  the  answer  is  that  it  is  his  volition,  that  it  springs  from  him¬ 
self  alone,  that  no  external  causation  is  involved,  that  it  repre¬ 
sents  correctly  his  feeling,  reason,  and  disposition ;  that  there¬ 
fore  he  is  justly  responsible  for  it ;  that  if  it  were  not  precisely 
what  it  is  it  would  not  represent  him,  but  something  else. 
To  this,  allowing  it  to  be  true,  we  answer,  If  the  fact  remain 
that  he  was  shut  up  to  the  volition,  so  as  not  to  be  able  to 
withhold  it  or  vary  it,  however  it  may  spring  from  him  alone, 
and  truly  represent  his  innermost  nature,  and  be  free  from 
external  compulsion,  it  nevertheless  reduces  him  to  a  mere 
machine,  and  leaves  him  no  more  free  than  a  lump  of  matter. 
In  fact,  in  the  last  analysis,  his  so-called  personal  act,  so  far 
from  being  free  from  external  compulsory  causation,  is  directly 
attributable  to  it.  What  is  external  compulsion  ?  If  a  man 
were  seized  by  some  person  and  forced  to  do  what  he  would 
choose  not  to  do,  the  case  is  clear ;  but  is  it  less  clear  if  the 
power  that  creates  him  so  constitutes  him  that  he  cannot  avoid 
the  choice?  Why  does  he  choose  as  he  does?  Because  he 
cannot  choose  otherwise.  Why  can  he  not  choose  other¬ 
wise  ?  Because  his  nature  is  as  it  is.  Why  is  his 
nature  as  it  is?  Because  his  Maker  so  constituted  him. 


W hat  is  Sin  ? 


97 


Then  the  reason  that  he  does  as  he  does  is  that  his 
Maker  incorporated  in  the  nature  he  gave  him  a  necessity  that 
he  should  so  act.  The  compulsion  is  real,  and  is  external.  It 
invests  him  with  intelligence,  and  feeling,  and  spontaneity, 
but  it  divests  him  of  freedom,  since  what  he  does  he  cannot 
avoid  doing.  The  only  possible  responsibility  that  can  exist 
in  the  case  must  lie  back  of  him,  in  the  creative  power  which 
so  made  him  that  he  is  incapable  of  responsibility ;  so  made 
him  that  his  volitions  must  inevitably  be  precisely  as  they 
are.  It  is  nothing  that  they  are  his,  or  represent  him,  if  they 
represent  an  automaton.  A  reasoning,  living,  feeling  autom¬ 
aton,  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  is  no  more  free  than  a 
senseless  dead  thing ;  and  without  gross  injustice  is  no  more 
susceptible  of  blame.  Neither  reason,  nor  feeling,  nor  sponta¬ 
neity  implies  freedom — nor  all  combined.  The  reason  is  not 
free,  nor  is  the  feeling,  nor  is  the  disposition,  nor  that  state  of 
the  mind — the  whole  complex — which  immediately  precedes  a 
volition  and  which  Dr.  Hodge  says  determines  the  volition,  so 
that  it  must  inevitably  be  as  it  is.  Dr.  Hodge  admits  and 
teaches  this.  But  if  these  necessitated  states  in  turn  necessi¬ 
tate  volition,  and  the  exact  volition,  and  make  any  other  voli¬ 
tion  impossible,  how  is  it  possible  to  conceive  of  a  closer  chain 
of  necessitation  ?  He  may  dilate  as  much  as  he  pleases  on  the 
peculiarities  of  an  intelligent,  sensitive,  and  volitionating  being, 
but  these  only  diversify  the  kind  of  being  without  breaking 
the  reign  of  necessity.  The  theological  system  defended  by 
this  illustrious  divine  shuts  him  up  to  his  theory  of  the  will, 
and  is  a  system  which  in  some  of  its  dogmas  expels  freedom 
from  the  universe.  Its  theory  of  foreknowledge,  not  less  than 
its  theory  of  foreordination,  works  this  result.  It  makes  fore¬ 
knowledge  a  result  of  decree,  which  not  only  fixes  events  in 
certainty,  but  in  certainty  because  of  necessity.  Events  are 
foreknown,  not  simply  as  foreseen,  but  as  fixed  in  causation al 


93 


Studies  ix  Theology. 


inevitability.  The  subterfuge  of  a  permissive  decree  brings  no 
relief  to  the  doctrine.  The  decree  determines  what  they  must 
be,  and  an  arrangement  is  made  which  secures  the  result.  It 
matters  nothing  that  the  result  is  according  to  the  laws  of 
mind.  These  laws  are  instituted  to  insure  the  sole  possible 
event.  Before  the  scheme  is  perfected  all  its  inclusions  are 
fixed  in  inevitability,  and  it  is  alleged  that  for  this  reason  the 
utmost  minutia  is  foreknown ;  and  it  is  assumed  that  in  this 
way  alone  are  foreknowledge  and  certainty  possible.  There 
is,  according  to  this  theory,  precisely  the  same  possibility,  and 
no  more,  of  altemativity  in  the  realm  of  spirit  as  in  the  realm 
of  matter,  and  freedom  is  as  predicable  of  one  as  of  the  other. 
A  volition  is  as  much  determined  by  its  antecedents  as  any 
effect  in  the  physical  universe.  If  it  be  said  the  mind  is  the 

author  of  its  own  volition  bv  its  constitution,  while  the  atom 

«/  • 

is  not  author  of  its  motion,  the  answer  is,  It  can  no  more  avoid 
its  volition  than  an  atom  can  resist  gravitation.  Herein  they 
are  alike ;  that  is,  however  they  may  differ  in  other  respects, 
as  to  a  possible  altemativity  of  action  they  are  precisely  alike. 

It  is  vain  to  say  that  the  decree  is  not  the  efficient  cause, 
since  the  theory  determines  that  the  so-called  efficient  cause, 
the  man  himself,  is  bound  to  the  sole  act  which  is  decreed,  and 
since,  also,  the  decree  so  environs  the  agent  that  his  antecedent 
state  of  mind,  which  the  will  represents,  is  one  over  which  he 
has  no  control.  He  is  what  he  is  by  no  act  or  choice  of  his, 
and  the  necessity  which  makes  him  drags  the  volition.  Thus, 
give  the  theory  the  benefit  of  its  last  and  most  cautious  utter¬ 
ance,  it  is  still  a  scheme  of  necessity.  Nothing  ever  has  been 
which  might  have  been  otherwise.  Whatever  the  spontaneity 
of  the  human  action,  and  however  free  from  external  compul¬ 
sion,  he  is  fettered.  His  so-called  liberty  is  a  mockery.  To 
predicate  responsibility  of  him  is  an  outrage  on  reason  and  con¬ 
science.  When  taken  in  connection  with  the  assumed  fact  that 


What  is  Sin? 


99 


his  every  volition  is  in  accordance  with  an  eternal  decree  which 
cannot  be  resisted,  and  that  he  is  providentially  so  environed 
that  his  acts  are  determined  to  the  one  possible  end  of  its  ful¬ 
fillment,  to  pretend  that  he  is  responsible,  or  is  held  to  ac¬ 
count  for  them,  and  blamed  and  punished  for  them,  is  to  do 
violence  to  the  idea  of  justice,  and  to  whelm  the  government 
of  God  in  unutterable  dishonor  and  disgrace.  If  it  were  true  it 
would  obliterate  the  last  traces  of  moral  distinctions  and  con¬ 
vict  reason  and  conscience  of  fraud.  If  there  were  a  God  who 
could  enact  such  a  scheme,  and  who  could  execute  it,  it  would 
be  impossible  that  men  should  reverence  and  worship  him 
until  they  had  first  reversed  their  intuitions  of  justice  and 
righteousness.  But  the  atrocious  supposition  is  false.  It  is  a 
misrepresentation  of  the  laws  of  mind.  Its  assumption  that 
volition  is  determined  by  anything  internal  or  external  to  the 
mind  is  without  foundation.  The  self  is  a  rational  being,  in¬ 
telligent,  sensitive,  moral.  It  can  never  divest  itself  of  these 
characteristics.  When  it  acts  it  must  act  with  these  qualities ; 
but  it  may  and  does  ignore  right  reason,  right  feeling,  and  con¬ 
science.  Nor  does  this  divest  it  of  its  nature.  It  is  still  a  rea¬ 
soning,  feeling,  and  conscience- endowed  being,  whether  it  act  in 
accordance  with  its  best  promptings  or  against  them.  Dr.  Hodge 
seems  to  imagine  that  he  makes  a  point  wThen  he  says:  “All 
the  desires,  affections,  or  feelings  which  determine  the  will  to  act 
must  have  an  object,  and  that  object  by  which  the  feeling  is  ex¬ 
cited  and  toward  which  it  tends  must  be  discerned  by  the  un¬ 
derstanding.  It  is  this  that  gives  them  their  rational  character, 
and  renders  the  determination  of  the  will  rational.  Any  voli¬ 
tion  which  does  not  follow  the  best  dictates  of  the  understand¬ 
ing  in  this  sense  of  the  word  is  the  act  of  an  idiot.  It  may  be 
spontaneous,  just  as  the  acts  of  brutes  are,  but  it  cannot  be  free 
in  the  sense  of  being  the  act  of  an  accountable  person.’'  * 

*  Systematic  Thelogy ,  vol.  ii,  p.  287. 


100 


Studies  in  Theology. 


What  a  strange  mixture  of  truth  and  error !  Certainly  a 
rational  being  must  apprehend  the  object  toward  which  he 
acts ;  there  is  no  dispute  about  that ;  but  is  that  the  same  as  to 
say  that  his  act  must  be  the  last  dictate  of  his  reason  ?  May 
he  not  be  a  reasoning  being  and  yet  act  as  a  fool  ?  Is  not  that 
the  exact  fact  in  all  cases  of  wrongdoing  ?  When  a  man  acts 
against  his  reason  it  does  not  prove  that  he  is  an  idiot  or  that 
he  acts  upon  mere  spontaneity  as  a  brute  does.  If  it  were  so 
it  would  free  him  from  responsibility.  But  it  proves  this, 
rather,  that,  being  a  reasonable  being,  he  acts  like  an  idiot. 
He  acts  against  what  from  his  nature  he  knows  to  be  right. 
That  is  his  sin.  For  that  reason  he  becomes  subject  of  blame. 
The  last  state  of  his  understanding,  before  his  act,  was  to  see 
the  right,  and  know  it,  and  feel  its  obligation ;  his  act  was  to 
reject  it,  and  debase  himself  by  playing  the  part  of  a  fool.  We 
repeat,  therefore,  that  freedom  is  the  absolute  mastery  the  mind 
has  over  its  own  acts,  be  they  right  or  wrong.  It  can  do  as 
it  ought  or  as  it  ought  not.  Which  it  will  do  it  determines.  It 
is  not  shut  up  to  do,  as  the  greatest  good  or  as  what  seems  to 
it  the  greatest  good,  as  the  strongest  motive  or  as  any  particu¬ 
lar  motive,  but  determines  for  itself  what  it  will  do.  It  is 
sovereign  of  its  own  acts.  It  says,  It  is  unreasonable,  it  is  ab¬ 
horrent,  it  is  essentially  wrong,  but  I  will  do  it  and  take  the 
consequences ;  or,  It  is  right,  it  is  what  ought  to  be,  it  is  good 
— I  know  all  this — but  I  will  not  do  it.  If  you  ask  why,  it 
answers,  Because  I  choose  to.  If  you  ask  why  it  chooses  to, 
it  might  assign  many  reasons,  as,  I  feel  like  it ;  I  am  disposed 
to  ;  I  take  the  risk.  But,  whatever  the  reason  of  the  action,  it 
cannot  be  assigned  as  the  efficient  cause,  or  as  the  determining 
cause.  It  is  one  among  many  of  the  possible  incitants  to  act, 
and  the  one  which  is  selected.  Any  other  might  have  been, 
this  one  is  that  in  view  of  which  the  actor  determines  himself. 

To  say  that  he  could  not  therefore  have  determined  differently 
6 


What  is  Sin? 


101 


is  what  he  consciously  knows  is  not  true.  One  need  only  test 
by  the  little,  common  events  of  each  passing  moment  to  assure 
him  of  the  truth  in  every  case.  Alternatives  are  always  pres¬ 
ent  with  him.  He  is  exercising  the  power  of  selection  every 
instant,  choosing  this  instead  of  that ;  and  to  pretend  that  he 
is  shut  up  to  the  de  facto  accepted  form  of  action  is  to  say  that 
he  cannot  but  close  his  eye,  move  his  head,  shift  his  position, 
or  pronounce  the  word,  if  he  intentionally  perform  any  one  of 
these  acts.  Its  absurdity  and  utter  falsity  are  so  plain  that  we 
cannot  suppose  that  those  who  propound  it  are  grave  and  sincere. 

Dr.  Hodge  is  persistently  shy  of  the  point  which  has  so  con¬ 
fused  his  compeers,  the  influence  of  motives,  but  he  does  not 
escape.  He  says:  “Most  of  the  arguments  against  the  state¬ 
ment  that  motives  are  the  cause  of  volition  are  founded  on 
the  assumption  that  they  are  affirmed  to  be  producing  causes, 
and  that  it  is  intended  to  deny  that  the  agent  is  the  efficient 
cause  of  his  own  acts ;  whereas  the  meaning  simply  is  that 
motives  are  the  reasons  that  determine  the  agent  to  assert  his 
efficiency  in  one  way  rather  than  another.  They  are ,  however , 
truly  causes ,  in  so  far  as  they  determine  the  effect  to  he  thus ,  and 
not  otherwise How,  nobody  ever  taught  that  the  motives 
did  the  deed  of  the  agent;  that  they  were  in  that  sense  effi¬ 
cient  cause.  The  man  does  the  act ;  he  is  efficient  cause.  But 
how  does  this  relieve  Dr.  Hodge  ?  He  says  the  motives  cause 
him  to  do  it ;  determine  it  to  be  as  it  is.  The  man  puts  forth 
the  power,  but  the  motive  makes  him  do  it ;  it  determines  him. 
If  the  motive  determines  him  he  is  as  unfree  to  the  opposite 
as  if  a  muscular  force  compelled  him.  The  act  is  his,  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  the  river  current  is  the  act  of  the  river,  so 
far  as  ability  not  to  act,  or  to  act  differently,  is  concerned.  If 
you  could  make  the  river  understand  that  it  flows,  and  impart 
to  it  a  desire  to  flow,  and  leave  it  under  the  same  necessity 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  290. 


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that  now  makes  it  flow,  yon  would  have  an  exact  analogy  to 
the  case  of  the  man  impelled  by  motive.  He  perceives  an 
object  toward  which  to  act;  it  excites  him  in  a  certain  manner; 
he  is  moved  thereby  to  act,  and  has  no  power  to  resist  it.  Is 
it  not  a  misnomer  to  call  this  freedom  ?  Is  it  not  impossible  to 
make  it  the  ground  of  responsibility  ? 

When  he  comes  to  speak  of  liberty  and  ability  he  evinces  the 
same  confusion  and  embarrassment.  It  is  obvious  in  every 
line  that  he  is  forced  to  put  evasive  meaning  on  the  words 
with  which  the  problem  requires  him  to  deal. 

We  set  over  against  these  definitions  this  one :  11  Freedom  of 
will  consists  in  the  absence  of  all  insuperable  impediments, 
internal  or  external,  to  the  use  of  the  power  of  choice  and 
executive  volitions,  whenever  an  occasion  for  its  exercise  ex¬ 
ists.”  This  definition  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  power  is  a 
power  which  belongs  to  a  person ;  that  the  power  and  use  of  it 
are  discrete ;  that  the  freedom  is  predicable,  not  of  the  power, 
but  of  him  who  uses  it ;  that  the  freedom  consists  in  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  insuperable  impediments  in  the  way  of  its  use ;  that  in 
order  to  be  used  there  must  be  an  occasion  or  end. 

We  have  seen  that  the  power  he  has  is  two-faceted — power 
to  choose  an  end,  and  power  to  effectuate  the  end  chosen.  But 
this  makes  it  necessary  that  in  order  to  the  use  of  the  power 
there  should  be  an  object,  and  that  to  be  an  object  it  must  be 
known,  and  must  awaken  sensibility,  and  must  be  possible. 
For  the  power  to  choose  is  not  power  to  choose  when  there  is 
nothing  to  be  chosen.  There  is  nothing  to  be  chosen  when 
there  is  nothing  known  or  felt ;  and  nothing  can  be  chosen  if 
the  objects  known  and  felt  are  known  to  be  impossible.  A 
person  must  possess  the  power  of  will  that  he  may  be  a  person, 
but  there  are  indispensable  external  conditions  of  its  exercise 
without  which  it  would  lie  fallow  forever ;  in  the  absence  of 
which  the  nonuse  and  nonpossibility  of  use  are  no  limitation 


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What  is  Sin? 


103 


of  personal  freedom ;  for  how  can  there  be  freedom  to  choose 
when  there  is  nothing  to  be  chosen  ?  and  what  limitation  of 
freedom  is  it  to  make  it  impossible  to  choose  an  object  which  it 
is  known  cannot  be  possessed,  or  not  to  be  able  to  put  forth 
power  to  accomplish  what  it  is  known  cannot  be  accomplished? 

In  order  that  choice  may  be  exercised  there  must  be  plurality  of 
objects.  The  term  itself  means  selection,  or  determination  to 
one  rather  than  another,  and  all  equivalent  terms  imply  this. 
If  the  object  be  single  it  always  presents  the  alternative  of 
choice  or  rejection,  to  do  or  not  do.  This  is  the  most  re¬ 
stricted  alternativity  possible.  From  this  it  may  widen  into 
any  number  of  alternatives,  out  of  which  one  only  may  be 
chosen.  In  most  cases  there  are  reasons  for  and  against,  with 
a  like  division  of  feeling  ;  the  reasons  and  feelings  take  oppo¬ 
site  sides,  and  the  conflict  is  sharp  and  earnest.  In  a  few  cases 
the  intelligence  and  sensibilities  agree.  In  the  former  case 
choice  is  difficult,  in  the  latter  it  is  frictionless  and  easy,  but  in 
all  cases  the  person  is  master  of  the  power  and  determines  what 
the  choice  shall  be.  It  is  never  made  without  the  conscious¬ 
ness  that  it  might  be  other  than  it  is — unless  it  may  be  in  some 
gust  of  passion,  when  the  deed  is  rather  an  impulse  than  a 
rational  act,  or  when  by  long  course  of  habit  the  person  is 
reduced  to  mere  automatism  and  freedom  is  substantially  de¬ 
stroyed,  and  the  power  runs  away  with  the  master.  That 
there  are  cases  of  this  kind  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Freedom 
may  be  obscured,  weakened,  overslaughed,  possibly  destroyed, 
but  during  probationary  existence  it  remains  intact,  and  mani¬ 
festation  of  it  is  constant  and  the  consciousness  of  it  complete. 
When  destroyed  the  subject  ceases  to  be  a  proper  object  of 
command,  and  probation  ends ;  but  he  may  continue  to  be  a 
proper  object  of  punishment  forever  for  bringing  himself  by  a 
criminal  abuse  of  freedom  into  this  abject  and  guilty  condition. 
When  we  heed  reason  against  desire  or  yield  to  desire  against 


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reason,  when  we  curb  passion  or  indulge  it,  it  is  with  the  per¬ 
fect  knowledge  that  we  bad,  at  the  moment,  power  to  the  oppo¬ 
site,  and  that  there  was  no  impediment  to  its  exercise  which 
necessitated  us  to  the  sole  and  single  act.  And  it  is  on  this 
ground  alone  that  we  predicate  of  our  act  desert  of  praise  or 
blame.  If  we  could  once  persuade  ourselves  that  the  deed 
was  unavoidable — that  in  the  exact  circumstances  in  which 
the  choice  was  made  and  act  performed  we  had  no  power  to 
the  contrary,  or  could  not  use  it — it  would  forever  be  im¬ 
possible  to  create  in  us  any  feeling  of  responsibility,  and  we 
should  be  as  incapable  of  remorse  as  a  piston  or  a  water¬ 
wheel  driven  by  absolute  forces.  It  serves  nothing  toward 
restoring  the  idea  of  responsibility  to  say  that  the  act  was 
chosen,  that  it  was  spontaneous,  that  it  was  our  act,  that  there 
was  no  external  force,  that  we  did  as  we  pleased,  or  that  we 
were  free,  if  it  be  once  established  that  we  could  not  avoid 
it — that  it  was  not  in  our  power  to  refrain  from  it  or  do  some¬ 
thing  else.  This  is  so  manifestly  true,  so  accordant  with  the 
common  everyday  experience,  with  the  universal  conscious¬ 
ness  ;  so  absolutely  essential  to  all  ideas  of  morality ;  so  in¬ 
eradicable  as  long  as  any  sense  of  responsibility  remains  on 
earth ;  so  the  basis  of  all  law,  human  and  divine  ;  so  corporate 
in  the  structure  of  language  and  institutions — so  a  law  of 
thought  itself — that  it  never  could  have  been  called  in  ques¬ 
tion  but  by  a  system  which  abolishes  God  from  the  universe, 
or  one  which  traduces  his  character  and  throne.  Either,  the 
one  no  more  than  the  other,  reduces  man  to  a  mere  piece  of 
mechanism,  and  all  his  acts — great  and  small,  whether  of  in¬ 
tellect,  or  affection,  or  will,  or  external  deed — to  the  same  cate¬ 
gory  as  secretions,  differing  only  in  kind  ;  both,  the  one  no 
more  than  the  other,  make  conscience  a  brazen  fraud,  a  false 
accuser,  a  usurper  ;  and  either  converts  its  reproofs  into  abuses 
and  its  warnings  into  a  mere  brutum  fulmen ,  or  convicts  the 


6 


What  is  Sin? 


105 


Author  of  the  universe  of  a  character  more  frightful  than 
human  imagination  has  as  yet  been  able  to  portray. 

The  proofs  of  freedom,  as  here  defined,  are,  first,  conscious¬ 
ness.  If  there  be  any  deliverance  in  consciousness  on  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  our  powers  it  is  this.  We  are  no  more  conscious  of  a 
power  to  know  or  feel  than  we  are  of  the  power  to  choose  and 
put  forth  executive  acts.  We  are  no  more  conscious  of  the 
power  to  choose  than  we  are  of  the  power  to  choose  the  oppo¬ 
site  of  any  choice  we  make.  It  never  occurs  to  us,  when  the 
power  is  exerted,  that  it  is  a  power  to  that  sole  act.  When  we 
make  it  a  subject  of  thought  we  intuitively  know  that  it  is  not. 
From  the  conviction  of  the  intuitive  reason,  posited  in  con¬ 
sciousness,  however  we  may  be  confused  by  sophistry,  we 
never  escape.  The  conviction  is  not  simply  that  we  have  power 
to  choose,  and  do  spontaneously  choose  as  we  do,  but  that  we 
could  choose  otherwise.  The  structure  of  every  language  on 
earth  demonstrates  that  this  accords  with  the  universal  thought 
—-that  it  is  a  spontaneous  utterance  of  mind  as  mind.  Such 
agreement  can  only  arise  from  an  inevitable  deliverance  of 
consciousness,  or  absolute  intuition.  It  makes  nothing  against 
this  that  theories  repudiate  it. 

It  is  objected  that  consciousness  does  not  reach  a  latent, 

unused  power,  but  only  the  power  which  is  actually  exerted ; 

that  we  are  conscious,  not  of  what  we  could  do,  but  of  what 

we  do.  This  is  not  true.  Before  we  act  we  are  conscious  of 

the  power  to  act,  and  if  we  were  not  we  could  not  act  at  all. 

An  object  is  placed  before  the  mind,  an  object  of  perception. 

It  awakes  consciousness  by  exciting  perception.  W e  come  to 

know  self  and  what  the  self  does.  The  object  awakens  desire 

or  some  state  of  feeling.  We  become  immediately  conscious, 

not  only  of  desire,  but  of  a  power  to  act  toward  it,  to  choose  it 

or  refuse  it.  This  consciousness  of  power  to  choose  or  refuse 

is  not  subsequent  to  the  act,  but  antecedent  and  requisite  con- 
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dition  of  it.  Thus  consciousness  of  power  precedes  the  use  of 
power,  and  it  is  consciousness  of  power  to  or  from— to  choose 
or  reject. 

The  second  proof  is  that  we  are  responsible  for  our  acts.  This, 
like  the  one  just  named,  is  an  intuitive  and  uneradicable  con¬ 
viction  of  mind  as  mind.  All  institutions  of  government  and 
discipline  repose  on  it ;  all  languages  express  it ;  all  personal 
remorse  and  self-approval  imply  it ;  all  condemnation  or  com¬ 
mendation  of  others  for  their  acts  or  nonacts  proclaim  it. 
There  is  no  escape  from  it,  except  by  a  process  of  self -abuse 
which  obliterates  all  traces  of  mind.  But  we  likewise  intui¬ 
tively  know  that,  if  responsible,  we  must  have  powers  over 
our  acts :  to  will  or  not  to  will ;  power  to  the  opposite,  power  to 
and  from.  We  know  that,  in  every  case  where  we  discover 
necessity,  immediately  we  become  unable  to  predicate  respon¬ 
sibility  absolutely.  Freedom,  as  power  to  the  opposite,  and 
responsibility  stand  or  fall  together.  The  one  can  no  more 
stand  without  the  other  than  consciousness  can  without  a  liv¬ 
ing,  intelligent  subject.  The  idea  of  responsibility  is  not 
empirical,  not  something  that  comes  after  experience.  Experi¬ 
ence  does,  indeed,  establish  it ;  we  see  by  it  that  we  are  respon¬ 
sible  ;  but,  before  the  act  and  the  resulting  effects,  we  feel  the 
responsibility;  we  anticipate  the  effect;  we  discern  what  it 
will  and  must  be.  Consciousness  of  responsibility  is  the  pre¬ 
cursor  of  every  moral  act ;  and  this  consciousness  is  that  the 
proposed  act  is  right  or  wrong,  and  that  if  done  we  shall  be 
required  to  answer;  and  that  we  can  only  be  required  to 
answer  as  it  is  our  free  and  unnecessitated  act ;  that  when  we 
perform  it  we  possess  the  power  to  the  opposite.  On  these 
grounds  alone  are  we  able  to  think  responsibility. 

Third:  the  Scriptures  affirm  freedom  as  power  to  the  opposite; 
its  accusations  and  persuasions  are  meaningless  without  it. 
To  this  view  of  freedom  several  objections  are  made ;  not  on 


What  is  Sin? 


107 


the  ground  that  it  is  irrational,  nor  jet  that  it  is  unscriptural, 
but  that  it  is  irreconcilable  with  other  doctrines  which  are 
held  to  be  true.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  if  it  were  considered 
apart,  bj  itself,  it  would  never  be  challenged.  The  exigencies 
of  systems  create  the  debate ;  the  proof  of  which  is  that  those 
who  reject  it  nevertheless  in  all  practical  matters  accept  it, 
and  in  their  theorizings  avoid  and  confuse  the  real  issue  in 
every  way  possible.  Materialists  reject  it  because  it  presup¬ 
poses  a  moral  realm,  which  they  deny.  They  do  not  deny 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness  and  conscience,  on  which  it 
rests,  but  they  set  them  down  as  a  delusion  and  a  snare,  and 
therefore  as  proving  nothing,  and  as  deserving  only  such  con¬ 
sideration  as  hallucinations  are  entitled  to.  Their  one  answer 
is,  Freedom  implies  a  class  of  powers  which  do  not  exist; 
therefore  it  is  false :  there  is  no  effect  without  a  cause,  and 
every  cause  is  potent  to  the  effect.  If  materialism  were  true 
the  argument  would  be  unanswerable  and  the  moral  universe 
would  be  abolished.  Augustinians — Calvinists — -reject  it,  for 
the  reasons  following : 

1.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  sovereignty  of  God.  See 
answer  in  the  discussion  of  Sovereignty. 

2.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  divine  plans  and  decrees. 

3.  It  is  irreconcilable  with  the  foreknowledge  of  God. 

4.  It  is  a  kind  of  freedom  not  necessary  to  meet  the  de¬ 
mands  of  the  moral  problem. 

The  freedom  necessary  to  constitute  us  moral  beings,  it  is 
alleged,  is  simply  the  freedom  to  do  as  we  choose,  or  to  act 
out  what  is  in  us.  If  by  this  is  meant  freedom  to  do  external 
acts  it  is  not  freedom  of  will  at  all,  since  the  will-act  must  pre¬ 
cede  the  external  act.  If  acting  out  what  is  in  us  means  act¬ 
ing  according  to  nature,  this  is  the  freedom  of  natural  forces  to 
produce  their  effects.  In  either  case  it  leaves  us  wholly  pow¬ 
erless  as  to  effects  by  leaving  us  wholly  necessitated  as  to  our 


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causality.  The  will  is  the  fountain  of  all  efficiency ;  if  we  do 
not  have  power  over  its  decisions  or  activity  we  have  no 
power.  That  which  the  moral  problem  demands  is  that  we 
should  have  freedom  as  to  our  own  causality ;  that  we  should 
be  causes  in  the  true  and  proper  sense ;  that  is,  that  we  should 
originate  the  beginning  of  our  responsible  activity.  If  the 
choices  are  caused  in  us,  and  not  by  us,  and  the  acts  flow  from 
the  necessitated  choices,  the  acts  are  not  ours,  but  must  be 
ascribed  to  the  necessitating  agent  which  puts  our  power  of 
choice  in  action. 

5.  It  is  alleged  that  we  are  conscious  of  being  influenced  by 
motives,  and  if  influenced  in  some  measure  there  can  be  no 
adequate  ground  for  assuming  that  the  influence  may  not  be 
irresistible. 

Influence  of  motives  prepares  us  for  action  by  furnishing  an 
end  attractive  to  the  reason  and  feeling,  or  otherwise ;  but  here 
its  function  ceases.  If  it  also  determined  our  act,  in  what  re¬ 
spect  would  we  differ  from  the  needle  when  it  is  drawn  to  the 
magnet,  and  how  could  responsibility  be  any  more  predicated  of 
the  one  than  the  other  ?  It  matters  nothing  that  it  is  our  char¬ 
acter  which  gives  power  to  the  motive,  since  our  character  is 
simply  a  product  of  causes  outside  our  freedom.  The  theory 
takes  freedom  from  us  as  really  as  if  the  resulting  act  were 
forced  directly.  Allow  that  by  a  course  of  free  acts  we  make 
ourselves  what  we  are,  and  so  give  power  to  internal  and  ex¬ 
ternal  motives,  and  the  case  is  clear.  We  may  by  a  process 
of  freedom  make  ourselves  impure ;  may  bind  chains  about  us 
that  we  cannot  break  ;  but  then  it  is  we  that  do  it — and  we  are 
responsible  for  the  enslavement  and  whatever  evil  ensues.  In 
such  a  case  we  are  not  responsible  for  that  to  which  we  had  no 
power,  but  for  the  destruction  of  a  power  which  we  did  possess. 

6.  It  is  alleged  that  our  depravity  is  such  that,  without 
grace,  we  are  disabled  to  good. 


What  is  Sin? 


109 


This  is  admitted ;  but  we  are  not  without  grace,  and  not  re¬ 
sponsible  for  the  depravity  except  as,  by  the  refusal  of  grace, 
we  permit  it  to  dominate  us. 

7.  It  is  said  that  after  probation — by  the  admission  of  all 
parties — the  good  are  unchangeably  fixed  in  good  and  the  evil 
in  evil,  and  this  without  affecting  their  merit  or  demerit. 

The  confirmation  of  saints  in  a  state  of  unchanging  holiness 
does  not  destroy  their  freedom  to  the  opposite,  but  simply  de¬ 
notes  that  they  have  entered  a  condition  in  which  they  will 
resist  evil  and  choose  good  forever.  It  is  not  a  growth  out  of 
freedom  into  necessity,  or  a  change  from  responsible  to  non- 
responsible  existence,  but  it  is  advancement  to  a  state  where 
temptation  will  practically  cease,  and  the  spontaneity  will  be 
frictionless  toward  the  good,  but  not  under  the  laws  of  neces¬ 
sity.  The  reverse  is  true  of  the  evil.  The  holiness  of  the  one 
and  the  evil  of  the  other  will  have  arisen  from  freedom,  and 
will  continue  to  be  the  expression  of  freedom.  But  it  is  said 
they  will  never  change.  Admitted.  This  does  not  prove  that 
they  are  not  free.  There  may  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  their 
remaining  as  they  become  without  binding  them  in  the  chains 
of  necessity — without  reducing  them  to  mere  automata. 

The  Scriptures  do,  indeed,  teach  the  permanence  of  the  good 
in  goodness  and  of  the  evil  in  evil — the  certainty  that  they 
will  never  change — but  this  is  not  the  affirmation  that  they  are 
not  free ;  to  assume  it  is  to  be  wise  above  what  is  written ;  but 
even  if  this  were  affirmed  it  would  not  imply  that  their  being 
in  this  fixed  condition  is  not  because  of  acts  which  were  per¬ 
formed  in  freedom.  If  it  should  appear  that  a  human  spirit 
may  come  to  fixedness  in  evil  by  a  long  course  of  evil  habit, 
or  by  separation  from  gracious  influences  as  a  just  punishment 
for  sin,  it  would  not  change  the  fact  of  its  responsibility  for  its 
condition,  since  it  is  the  result  of  abuse  of  free  will.  The 
ground  of  blame  for  present  acts  would  be  that  the  authors  of 


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them  brought  themselves  into  the  condition  of  fixedness  by 
former  free  courses  of  self-abuse.  They  might  not,  indeed,  be 
responsible  for  what  they  now  do,  or  fail  to  do,  if  it  be  impos¬ 
sible  to  do  otherwise,  but  they  would  be  answerable  for  making 
it  impossible.  The  good,  on  the  other  hand,  are  but  reaping 
the  just  reward  of  a  holy  life,  which  has  developed  in  them, 
not  a  necessary  continuance  in  holiness,  but  a  free  and  change¬ 
less  volition  to  it.  But  it  is  said  that  even  now  the  wicked 
cannot  turn  themselves  to  God,  and  especially  that  they  cannot 
make  themselves  good.  They  must  be  able  to  do  both  of  these 
if  they  are  required.  No  being  can  be  commanded  to  do  what 
is  impossible  and  the  command  be  just.  If  of  mere  nature  the 
thing  is  impossible  it  will  be  found  the  requirement  does  not 
rest  on  mere  nature.  If  grace  be  needed  to  supplement  weak¬ 
ness  it  will  be  found  the  grace  is  always  given.  Freedom  does 
not  apply  to  all  things.  A  man  is  not  free  to  fly,  or  subsist 
without  food,  or  to  do  anything  for  which  he  has  no  faculty ; 
but  this  does  not  imply  that  he  is  not  free  in  his  proper  sphere. 
A  man  cannot  annihilate  the  fact  that  he  has  sinned,  cannot 
purge  his  depravity,  cannot  by  a  volition  make  himself  holy ; 
but  this  does  not  imply  that  he  cannot  do  anything  he  is  re¬ 
quired  to  do,  and  for  the  not  doing  of  which  he  is  blamewor¬ 
thy.  The  fact  is  admonitory  that  the  growing  influence  of 
habit  may  make  it  irresistible,  but  it  does  not  prove  nonfree¬ 
dom,  but  rather  the  opposite,  during  a  period  of  probation.  It 
makes  the  possible  loss  of  freedom  a  possible  element  of  pun¬ 
ishment.  A  soul  reaching  this  state  cannot  be  said,  henceforth, 
to  be  so  much  blamable  for  its  habitual  sinfulness  and  help¬ 
lessness  as  for  those  free  acts  which  brought  it  into  such  a 
forlorn  state.  It  rests  under  eternal  blame  for  being  as  it  is 
and  doing  as  it  does,  since  it  was  the  free  cause  of  its  own  evil 
state.  It  once  might  have  been  avoided,  and  it  is  now  a  just 

recompense.  The  truth  remains  that  there  must  be  ability 

6 


What  is  Sin? 


Ill 


where  there  is  responsibility,  and  a  condition  of  blamableness 
and  punishment  must  be  the  outcome  of  acts  which  were  free, 
and  so  which  might  have  been  avoided.  No  being  can 
ever  be  blamed  that  could  not  have  done  other  than  that  for 
which  he  is  blamed,  and  no  being  can  be  entitled  to  praise  for 
doing  or  being  anything  which  is  the  result  of  necessity,  be  it 
internal  or  external.  These  axioms  are,  like  all  other  axioms, 
eternal  and  necessary  truths. 

It  may  indeed  be  a  question  whether  a  soul  once  enthralled 
by  sin  can  ever  work  out  its  own  deliverance  or  have  power 
of  self-restoration  to  holiness.  It  may  even  be  certain  that  it 
cannot ;  but  it  must  be  certain  that  it  cannot  be  placed  in  this 
condition  by  actions  necessitated  in  it,  and  that  it  cannot  be 
blamed  for  not  doing  what  is  impossible.  All  ground  of  con¬ 
demnation  must  rest  on  the  freedom  it  once  possessed,  and  by 
the  abuse  of  which  it  is  reduced  to  its  hopeless  state  of  help¬ 
lessness  and  ruin. 

There  may,  indeed,  come  a  time  when  efforts  at  reclama¬ 
tion  may  cease  ;  but  so  long  as  invitation  is  extended,  and  the 
duty  of  reformation  is  urged  upon  or  by  the  conscience,  there 
must  be  either  personal  power  to  comply  or  some  external 
help  available.  The  offers  of  salvation  and  the  demands 
made  for  obedience  in  the  Gospel  are  a  mockery  if  the  sinner 
has  no  power  of  his  own,  and  none  in  his  reach,  by  which  he 
may  comply  with  the  one  and  obey  the  other.  When  possible 
action  to  the  right  ceases  the  exhortation  and  command  must 
cease.  If  it  is  said,  If  this  be  so,  then,  wThen  a  sinner,  by 
reason  of  his  sin,  incurs  disability  to  be  holy,  which  was  his 
duty,  holiness  ceases  to  be  a  duty,  and  his  continued  unholi¬ 
ness  is  no  violation  of  his  obligation,  and  it  can  no  more  be 
said  of  him  that  he  ought  to  be  holy— we  answer,  This  cer¬ 
tainly  does  not  follow.  He  ought  to  be  holy ;  he  has  made 
himself  unable  to  be  so ;  the  obligation  is  not  abolished,  and 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


for  the  disability,  self-superinduced,  he  may  be  justly  pun¬ 
ished.  The  measure  of  his  guilt  is  precisely  the  measure 
of  the  ought  which  was  possible  to  him,  and  for  which  he 
was  responsible.  That  he  cannot  now  render  it  is  his  own 
fault,  and  while  he  cannot  be  required  to  do  the  impossible 
thing  he  may  be  justly  punishable  for  the  not  doing  of  it,  or  to 
the  full  extent  of  the  measure  of  guilt  for  not  doing  it,  since 
by  disabling  himself  he  failed  in  the  service  justly  required  of 
him.  Nor  would  this  be  punishing  for  acts  to  which  the  guilty 
party  was  not  able.  He  was  able.  He  made  himself  unable. 
His  guilt  was  incurred  under  the  conditions  which  make  guilt 
possible ;  it  remains  now  under  conditions  in  which  it  would 
be  impossible  if  the  present  state  were  not  self-superinduced. 
But,  it  is  said,  still  the  blame  is  imputed  for  a  state  or  acts 
which  are  now  inevitable,  and  this  breaks  down  the  rule  that 
no  blame  can  be  imputed  when  acts  are  inevitable.  We  an¬ 
swer,  This  is  not  true.  All  the  life  of  sin  was  evitable  once, 
and  we  blame  the  culprit  because  he  has  lived  it,  and  con¬ 
tinues  to  live  it,  when  he  might  have  avoided  it. 

To  the  doctrine  of  freedom  it  is  further  objected  that  it  is  in 
contradiction  of  the  established  doctrine  of  a  sufficient  cause ; 
that  it  releases  the  will  from  the  operation  of  the  universal 
law.  The  law  is,  “  For  each  effect  there  must  be  a  cause,  and 
the  cause  produces  the  effect.”  Volitions  are  effects;  a  suffi¬ 
cient  cause  must  be  assignable  ;  but  these  volitions  come  under 
the  general  law  of  causation,  and  freedom  can  no  more  be 
predicable  of  them  than  of  other  effects.  Each  volition  must 
have  a  sufficient  cause,  and  the  sufficient  cause  must  produce 
the  exact  and  only  effect  of  which  it  is  the  sufficient  cause ;  it 
cannot  be  a  cause  and  not  a  cause  at  the  same  time,  and  it  may 
not  be  a  cause  of  nothing  in  particular ;  since,  then,  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  cause  necessitates  the  existence  of  the  effect,  voli¬ 
tional  effects  cannot  be  free.  Let  us  do  justice  to  this  objec- 
6 


What  is  Sin? 


113 


tion.  What  do  we  mean  by  cause ?  “The  word  cause,”  Dr. 
Hodge  says,  “is  ambiguous.  Sometimes  it  means  the  mere 
occasion ;  sometimes  the  instrument  by  which  something  is  ac¬ 
complished  ;  sometimes  the  efficiency  to  which  the  effect  is  due ; 
sometimes  the  end  for  which  a  thing  is  done,  as  when  we 
speak  of  final  causes ;  sometimes  the  ground  or  reason  why  the 
effect  or  action  of  the  efficient  cause  is  so  rather  than  other¬ 
wise.  To  say  that  motives  are  the  occasional  causes  of  voli¬ 
tions  is  consistent  with  any  theory  of  agency,  whether  of  neces¬ 
sity  or  indifference.  To  say  that  they  are  efficient  causes  is  to 
transfer  the  efficiency  of  the  agent  to  the  motives  ;  but  to  say 
that  they  are  the  ground  or  reason  why  the  volitions  are  what 
they  are  is  to  say  that  every  rational  being,  in  every  rational 
act,  must  have  a  reason,  good  or  bad,  for  acting  as  he  does.”* 

When,  then,  it  is  said  that  an  event  must  have  an  adequate 
cause,  we  mean  one  of  these  several  things :  a  person  which 
produces  it,  or  the  reason  why  the  person  acts,  or  an  end  to 
which  it  is  exerted.  Ultimate  cause  must  be  spontaneous ;  that 
is,  must  be  uncaused,  must  have  the  grounds  of  action  in  itself. 
This,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  the  only  proper  idea  of  cause ;  and 
the  action  of  such  a  cause  must  be  free. 

In  what  way  is  freedom  inconsistent  with  the  doctrine  that 
every  effect  must  have  a  sufficient  cause  ?  Suppose  a  being 
exist  such  as  man  is,  an  effect-producing  being,  is  there  any 
impropriety  in  calling  him  a  cause  ?  If  not,  what  would  we 
mean  by  ascribing  to  him  that  character  ?  He  walks  or  rides. 
If  we  inquire  for  the  cause  of  the  walking  or  riding  are  we  not 
satisfied  with  the  answer  that  the  man  is  the  cause?  Do  we  ever 
think  it  necessary  to  look  further  to  find  the  cause — some  other 
cause  that  sets  the  cause  agoing?  We  do  not  doubt  there  is 
an  end  or  reason  for  the  action  which  he  perceives  or  feels ; 
and  we  often  say  he  does  the  act,  whatever  it  may  be,  because 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  289,  290. 


6 


Studies  in  Theology. 


114 

of  the  reason ;  but  we  do  not  mean  that  the  reason  is  the  force 
expressed  in  the  act,  but  only  the  end  for  which  he  employs  a 
self-contained  power.  He  exerts  the  power,  and  so  is  the 
cause.  For  a  free  volition,  then,  there  is  a  cause,  and  the 
cause  is  the  person  who  exerts  it.  He  is  adequate  to  it.  Prior 
to  the  volition  he  exists,  and  has  latent  power  which,  under 
suitable  conditions,  he  can  spontaneously  convert  into  active 
power,  of  which  volition  will  be  the  expression.  The  suitable 
condition  is  the  perception  of  an  end  which  seems  reasonable, 
or  desirable  and  possible,  to  him.  This  perception  puts  him 
into  the  condition  for  action,  or  for  becoming  a  de  facto 
cause.  The  requisite  power  is  in  him  to  make  him  cause.  He 
needs  but  use  it.  When  he  does  use  it  for  the  end  which  he 
perceives  to  be  reasonable  or  desirable  we  say  he  does  it,  and 
do  not  think  it  necessary  to  seek  something  else  to  explain  it. 
The  effect  is  a  choice ;  the  power  he  is  is  the  cause  of  the  choice. 
There  were  several  alternatives  before  him,  or  reasons  for  this  or 
that  or  the  other ;  the  power  was  that  of  choice  between  them. 
When  he  chooses  one  we  say  he  had  the  power  to  choose,  and 
that  explains  the  choice ;  but  then  the  power  to  choose  was 
power  to  choose  the  others  as  well  as  the  one  chosen.  He  is 
sufficient  cause  for  any  of  the  alternatives — he  is  equal  to 
any  of  them — -but  he  becomes  real  cause  to  the  end  which  is 
actualty  effected  by  his  use  of  power.  What  the  use  is  he 
determines. 

Thus  we  see  that  there  are  no  valid  objections  against  the 
doctrine  of  freedom  as  alternativity,  or  power  of  self-determi¬ 
nation  to  either  of  alternative  ends ;  and  also  we  see  that  the 
sophistical  objections  urged  against  it  are  inventions  in  the  in¬ 
terests  of  other  false  doctrines  of  a  false  theory  but  for  the 
necessities  of  which  they  would  never  have  been  invented; 
that  they  do  violence  to  intuitive  convictions  and  conscious¬ 
ness  itself ;  that  they  spring  either  from  atheism,  pantheism, 


What  is  Sin? 


115 


fatalism,  or  a  form  of  natural  theism,  or  perverted  scriptural 
theism,  ail  of  which  are  schemes  of  necessity,  and  which  do 
away  with  the  existence  and  possibility  of  a  moral  universe,  and 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  ought  and  ought  not,  rewards  and 
punishments,  fundamental  thereto.  The  exclusion  of  freedom 
excludes  the  possibility  of  anything  different  from  what  has 
been,  is,  or  will  be,  and  renders  absurd  and  meaningless  all 
idea  of  attempt  at  bringing  about  improvement  of  any  kind, 
or  of  concern  or  regret  for  anything  that  may  be ;  and  all  that 
can  be  said  in  explanation  of  such  feelings  as  ought  and  ought 
not,  remorse,  shame,  regret,  and  desire  for  the  better,  is  that 
they  are  meaningless  products  of  necessity,  doing  no  good  and 
serving  no  purpose,  or  at  best  that  they  are  an  artifice  by 
which  to  deceive  men  with  false  imaginations  of  a  part  which 
they  suppose  themselves  to  act.  Since  the  facts  are  as  they 
are,  and  never  could  have  been  otherwise,  it  is  an  entirely  in¬ 
different  question  what  the  fountain  head  of  the  necessity  is. 
A  universe  constructed  on  this  theory  can  only  be  as  it  is,  and 
if  it  could  be  different — but  it  cannot— might  swing  through 
its  meaningless  round  of  changes  with  utter  indifference,  and, 
having  detected  the  fraud  of  all  ideas  of  responsibility,  ought  to 
exterminate  all  remorse,  all  sense  of  obligation— all  ethical  lum¬ 
ber — and  submit  to  fate  cheerfully  and  extort  from  it  whatever 
it  can  of  gratification.  But  why  do  we  say  ought?  There  is 
no  ought.  It  must  and  will  be  just  as  it  turns  out  to  be. 

The  idea  is  so  repugnant  to  laws  of  thought  that  language 
and  thought  itself  would  have  to  be  revolutionized  before  it 
can  be  conceived  or  expressed.  The  necessity  that  presses  us 
renders  all  our  established  modes  of  thinking  false,  and  cum¬ 
bers  our  language  with  words  which  represent  only  lies. 

The  theory  of  freedom,  on  the  other  hand,  fits  to  all  the  facts 
of  existence,  furnishes  the  indispensable  conditions  to  responsi¬ 
bility,  lays  the  foundations  of  moral  government,  accords  with 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


intuitive  convictions,  is  in  harmony  with  consciousness,  gives 
function  and  authority  to  conscience,  makes  the  restraints  and 
demands  of  law  just,  satisfies  the  dictates  of  reason,  agrees  with 
experience,  harmonizes  with  revelation — its  promises,  invita¬ 
tions,  commands,  reproofs,  and  warnings — gives  dignity  to 
virtue  and  heinousness  to  vice ;  in  a  word,  ennobles  man  as  a 
free  and  responsible  agent  and  enthrones  God  as  a  just  and 
honorable  sovereign  of  the  universe.  It  makes  sin  sin,  and 
holiness  holiness.  It  lifts  being  from  the  dead  sea  of  necessity, 
and  glorifies  it  with  the  powers  and  possibilities  of  freedom.  It 
creates  a  heaven  for  goodness  and  justifies  a  hell  for  evil.  It 
makes  the  difference  between  matter  and  spirit,  angels  and 
devils.  Take  it  away,  and  nothing  remains  but  brute  neces¬ 
sity  and  a  dark  and  dismal  outlook  of  dread  and  despair  full  of 
possible  inevitable  evil.  Against  it  no  fact  of  experience,  no 
suggestion  of  reason,  no  teaching  of  revelation  properly  inter¬ 
preted,  no  utterance  of  conscience,  no  deliverance  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  can  be  alleged.  For  these  reasons  we  accept  it,  and  find 
it  the  key  to  the  problem  of  being  and  to  the  justification  of 
the  ways  of  God  with  man.  It  is  not  simply  a  truth,  but  it  is  a 
master  truth;  not  a  factor  simply,  but  a  prime  factor  in  the 
structure  of  moral  being;  a  determiner  of  all  right  thought; 
there  is  no  moral  universe  without  it ;  it  is  the  foundation  of 
ethics.  As  well  surrender  God  as  give  it  up ;  nay,  give  it  up, 
and  any  concept  of  God  that  may  remain  is  one  which  is  so  dis¬ 
creditable  that  it  is  no  longer  God  but  fate,  or  worse,  that  is  left 
We  conclude  that  man  is  a  responsible  being,  made  so  by  be¬ 
ing  endowed  with  power  to  originate  his  own  intentional  acts, 
determine  his  own  volitions,  choose  his  own  destiny ;  so  that, 
whatever  the  result,  he  is  the  author  of  it ;  and  so  that,  what¬ 
ever  it  is,  he  might  have  made  it  otherwise.  God  is  just  and 
good  in  so  making  and  endowing  him,  and  in  rendering  to  him 
according  to  his  deserts. 


Guilt. 


117 


GUILT. 

The  significance  of  this  word  becomes  of  great  importance. 
Some  define  it  “liability  to  punishment.'’  Prefix  the  words 
“that  which  constitutes/’  and  we  accept  the  definition.  It  im¬ 
ports  a  quality  of  a  person,  arising  from  his  relations  to  moral 
law,  which  renders  him  deserving  of  its  condemnation,  and  of 
a  punishment  inflicted  by  its  author.  It  is  a  state  or  quality 
of  ill  desert  which  arises  from  an  act  of  the  will,  or  the  non- 
act  of  the  will,  in  conscious  violation  of  law,  which  act  is  sin. 
The  guilt  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  sin,  but  it  cannot  exist 
without  sin,  and  no  sin  can  be  without  it.  It  goes  with  sin  as 
form  with  substance ;  and  is  that  of  sin  which  denotes  its  evil 
and  is  the  measure  of  it — or  rather  denotes  the  demerit  of  the 
sinner  himself  and  is  the  measure  of  his  personal  ill  desert.  It 
always  attaches  to  a  person,  but  only  for  an  act  or  a  state  which 
results  from  an  act  It  is  not  the  act  alone  that  is  displeasing 
to  law,  but  the  person  who  commits  it — on  account  of  it. 
The  act  is  harmful,  and  bad,  but  the  actor  is  guilty.  The  law 
prohibits  the  act,  condemns  the  actor.  There  are  two  closely 
related  ideas  in  an  inseparable  unity;  wrong  describes  the 
one,  guilt  describes  the  other.  If  we  are  right  in  this  defini¬ 
tion  of  guilt,  then  whatever  of  evils  may  exist  in  a  nature,  how¬ 
ever  the  nature  may  be  disconformed  to  its  law,  guilt  may  not 
be  predicated  of  it  unless  the  disconformity  be  the  result  of  a 
free  act ;  and  as  sin  always  implies  guilt,  so  sin  may  not  be 
predicated  of  it.  In  order  to  the  existence  of  sin  and  guilt,  two 
factors  which  cannot  exist  apart,  as  there  can  never  be  sinless 
guilt  or  guiltless  sin,  there  must  be  a  person,  a  law,  and  an  act : 
a  person  that  is  free;  a  law  that  commands;  and  voluntary 
disobedience  of  the  command.  Since  the  law  only  commands 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


what  is  good  the  act  which  caused  its  breach  must  necessarily 
be  evil,  or  bad ;  since  the  person  had  power  to  obey,  and  was 
obliged  by  the  command,  the  person  for  his  evil  act  is  guilty. 
Guilt  to  him  is  inherent  in  the  act.  One  contains  the  other. 
Whatever  else  may  be  predicated  of  a  free  being,  as  to  his  nature, 
or  the  relations  of  his  powers,  or  his  activities — whatever  of 
disorder,  or  disharmony,  or  unloveliness,  or  folly,  or  harmful¬ 
ness,  or  degradation,  or  absolute  ruin  and  overthrow — sin  and 
guilt  are  facts  which  can  only  be  predicated  of  him  when  he 
originated  as  a  will  a  transgression  of  a  law  whose  requirements 
he  knew,  and  whose  obligation  he  voluntarily  disregarded. 
Other  breaches  of  law  by  him — of  law  unknown,  or  law  to  the 
obedience  of  which  he  had  no  power — were  not  breaches  of  his 
law,  for  under  such  conditions  law  there  could  not  be ;  and  of 
such  breaches,  whatever  calamity  may  result  to  himself  or  the 
universe,  neither  sin  nor  guilt  can  be  predicated  without  a  mis¬ 
use  of  language  and  gross  perversion  of  thought.  Laws  broken 
by  unmoral  beings,  or  by  moral  beings  without  knowledge,  or 
under  necessity,  are  not  moral  breaches,  or  breaches  of  moral 
law,  for  in  such  cases  there  is  no  subject  of  moral  law ;  and  there 
can  be  no  law  binding  where  there  is  not  a  subject,  or  in  a 

matter  in  relation  to  which  a  person  is  not  a  subject. 

6 


Punishment. 


119 


PUNISHMENT. 

We  have  now  seen  that  sin  is  the  moral  act  of  a  moral  be¬ 
ing  in  violation  of  moral  law ;  that  guilt  is  the  desert  of  punish¬ 
ment  which  accrues  to  him  consequent  thereupon.  It  remains 
that  we  consider  the  import  of  the  word  punishment.  It  is 
considered  by  some  to  be  any  kind  of  suffering  endured  by  a 
moral  being ;  so  that  all  sufferings  are  pronounced  punishments. 
This  is  by  no  means  clear.  Punishment  is  that  suffering  which 
is  inflicted  upon  a  person  because  of  some  ill  desert  which  is 
supposed  to  attach  to  him  in  view  of  a  transgression  of  moral 
law  perpetrated  by  him ,  and  expresses  the  displeasure  of  the 
lawgiver  against  him  on  account  of  his  act.  Thus  it  is  plain 
that  by  punishment  we  do  not  mean  pain,  misery,  suffering, 
or  distress  indifferently,  and  without  respect  to  their  causes ; 
but  we  do  mean  sufferings  inflicted  on  a  person  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  expressing  displeasure  against  him  on  account  of  some 
personal  act  in  relation  to  law.  When  the  party  inflicting  the 
punishment  is  God  it  expresses  the  displeasure  of  God  against 
him  for  some  breach  of  law  which  God  commanded  him  to 
obey. 

Here  are  two  distinct  concepts  :  one  that  of  a  person  suffer¬ 
ing  ;  the  other  that  of  a  person  inflicting  suffering  for  a  definite 
purpose.  The  question  is,  Does  the  first  concept  always  in¬ 
clude  the  second  ?  This  is  often  assumed.  W e  deny.  It  is 
an  important  question.  If  those  are  right  whose  position  we 
antagonize,  then  suffering,  in  all  cases,  shows  sin  in  the  sufferer. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  right,  then  there  may  be  suffering 
where  there  is  no  sin.  The  position  we  assume  is  so  important, 
and  yet  has  been  so  overlooked,  or,  what  is  worse,  denied,  that 
we  will  illustrate  it  at  a  greater  length. 


6 


120 


Studies  in  Theology. 


There  are  clearly  discernible  three  classes  or  kinds  of  suffer¬ 
ing,  haying  distinct  sources,  and  expressive  of  different  pur¬ 
poses  : 

1.  Sufferings  that  are  penal:  punishments,  in  which  the 
sufferer  suffers  because  of  guilt ;  that  is,  because  of  some  breach 
of  law  which  he  ought  not  to  have  committed  but  which  he  did 
freely  commit ;  in  view  of  which  act  the  displeasure  of  the  law¬ 
maker  is  excited  against  him  and  his  power  exerted  upon  him. 
Such  a  case  is  that  in  human  law  in  which  a  person  is  executed 
for  murder,  or  imprisoned  for  crime ;  or,  under  divine  law,  that 
in  which  God  exerts  the  penalty  of  his  law — which  is  ex¬ 
clusion  from  his  favor,  and  consequent  remorse — against  the 
transgressor. 

2.  The  case  of  suffering  in  consequence  of  another’s  sin  or 
directly  by  means  of  it — by  means  of  some  natural  or  social  re¬ 
lation  to  the  guilty  party,  or  some  wrong  done  to  the  sufferer. 
Such  a  case  is  that  where  a  child  suffers  by  inheriting  the  con¬ 
sequences  of  his  father’s  crime ;  or  when  he  inherits  disease ;  or 
where  innocence  is  destroyed  by  violence.  The  suffering  does, 
indeed,  in  such  cases,  result  from  crime,  but  it  were  a  great 
abuse  of  language,  and  a  much  greater  abuse  of  justice,  to  call 
it  punishment.  If  punishment,  by  what  law,  and  for  what  of¬ 
fense  ?  Then  there  is  a  suffering  that  is  not  punishment ;  that, 
indeed,  so  far  from  implying  guilt  in  the  sufferer,  shows  him  to 
be  the  victim,  in  the  matter  of  his  suffering,  of  an  atrocious 
wrong. 

3.  Suffering  which  exists  wholly  irrespective  of  guilt  or  pun¬ 
ishment  either  in  the  subject  of  it  or  anywhere  else;  which  is 
neither  punishment  of  a  guilty  person,  nor  is  superinduced  by 
natural  or  social  relations  to  a  guilty  person,  nor  yet  is  caused 
directly  by  a  guilty  person.  This  class  of  cases,  if  they  exist, 
proves  that  there  is  no  necessary  connection  whatever  between 
suffering  and  the  idea,  or  rather  fact,  of  guilt ;  so  that  a  uni- 


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verse  in  which  no  guilt  is,  and  consequently  no  punishment, 
might  nevertheless  be  a  suffering  universe.  Such  we  conceive 
not  only  might  be  the  case,  but  certainly  has  been  and  is  the 
case.  On  no  other  principle  can  we  explain  the  suffering  of 
pre-Adamite  races ;  the  suffering  now,  and  all  along  the  ages, 
of  unmoral  races.  The  former  suffered  when  as  yet  there  wras 
no  sin.  The  latter  do  yet  suffer  when  it  is  impossible  there 
should  be  sin.  It  has  never  yet  been  shown,  and  we  venture 
to  assert  that  it  cannot  be  shown,  that  sufferings,  and  even  great 
sufferings,  might  not  be  beneficially  and  beneficently  included 
in  a  universe  in  which  sin  did  not  exist  at  all :  sufferings  con¬ 
ditional  to  and  compensated  by  a  higher  good  not  otherwise 
attainable ;  sufferings  expressive  of  no  displeasure  at  violated 
law,  but  bom  of  love,  the  offspring  of  benignity- — working  to 
the  greatest  good  of  the  sufferer — or  sufferings  incident  to  a 
nature  capable  of  enjoyments  of  some  kind. 

Here,  then,  is  the  generic  difference  between  mere  suffering 
and  punishment ;  a  distinction  so  broad  as  to  be  universally 
recognized  except  by  a  class  of  theologians,  and  by  them  in  all 
cases  except  when  the  necessities  of  a  theory  confuse  their  per¬ 
ceptions. 

The  value  of  this  discussion  consists  in  this,  that  it  rules  out 
suffering  as  a  proof  of  sin,  and  so  destroys  an  argument  which 
has  often  been  employed  to  establish  the  sin  of  infants  and, 
what  is  still  more  wonderful,  the  sin  of  our  Saviour  himself ! 

Having  found  the  origin  of  sin,  and  wherein  it  consists,  we 
are  now  prepared  to  examine  the  questions,  How  did  the  primal 
sin  affect  the  Adam  himself ;  and  how  did,  and  how  does,  it 
affect  his  posterity  ? 

These  have  long  been  most  important  questions  in  theology — 

not  more  important  than  difficult.  They  have  given  rise  to 

protracted  and  earnest  and,  it  is  sad  to  add,  many  times  most 

exasperated  discussions.  The  most  candid  and  able  men  have 
9  6 


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occupied  extremely  oppugnant  positions.  But  the  questions  are 
so  intrinsically  important  that  it  is  impossible  they  should  rest 
until  a  nearer  approach  to  harmony  is  reached.  The  discussion 
must  progress.  It  ought  to  be  conducted  with  patience  and 
candor. 

We  take  the  questions  up  in  their  order:  What  was  the 
effect  of  the  Adam  sin  upon  himself?  To  this  question  divers 
answers  have  been  returned,  but  in  the  main  there  has  been 
substantial  agreement.  On  the  following  points  there  is  abso¬ 
lute  harmony:  (a)  His  act  of  disobedience  began,  not  with  the 
temptation  or  solicitation,  whether  internal  or  external,  but  with 
the  free  consent  of  his  will  to  the  act ;  it  was  completed  by  the 
overt  act  of  disobedience ;  and  the  completed  act  rendered  him 
guilty  in  the  sight  of  God.  ( b )  The  immediate  result  of  the  act 
was  that  from  the  enjoyment  of  the  divine  favor  and  fellowship 
h.e  became  an  object  of  displacence,  and  became  at  once  subject 
to  the  death  threatened.  There  is  not  perfect  agreement  as  to 
the  import  of  the  term  death  in  the  threatened  punishment. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  utter  death — immediate 
and  perpetual  severance  from  his  true  end;  the  overthrow 
of  the  good  of  his  being ;  death  temporal,  or  the  cessation  of  his 
natural  life  ;  death  spiritual,  or  the  destruction  of  his  spiritual 
life  of  communion  with  God.  In  both  forms  the  effect  was 
necessarily  perpetual  under  course  of  mere  law.  Some  have 
imagined  that  death,  the  threatened  penalty,  included — had, 
indeed,  for  its  very  substance — extinction,  or  utter  annihilation. 
For  this  idea  we  think  there  is  no  scriptural  warrant ;  but  the 
revelation  on  the  subject  is  exceedingly  brief,  and  it  is  perhaps 
quite  impossible  to  know  what,  under  course  of  law,  would  have 
happened  to  the  Adam.  It  is  not  agreed  that,  on  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  immediate  physical  death  was  included  in  the  sentence 
threatened,  it  must  necessarily  be  inferred  that  temporal  death 

would  not  have  taken  place  had  he  not  sinned.  For  its  imme- 

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Punishment. 


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diate  infliction  there  might  be  in  his  act  of  disobedience  a  legal 
reason,  as  we  shall  find  there  was.  But  this  is  not  conclusive 
of  the  point  that,  had  he  not  sinned,  he  would  not  ultimately 
have  died  in  course  of  nature.  This  assumption  is  often  made, 
but  it  is  without  warrant,  either  of  reason  or  revelation,  (c)  An 
immediate  effect  of  his  sin  was  the  introduction  into  his  nature 
of  abnormalcy ;  a  depraved  condition  and  tendency  such  that, 
in  himself,  there  was  no  power  to  restore  himself  to  righteous¬ 
ness  and  the  forfeited  favor  of  God.  Sin,  working  moral  sev¬ 
erance  from  God,  became  enthroned  and  dominant  over  him. 
Guilt,  and  consequent  liability  to  the  threatened  punishment, 
left  him  helpless  under  the  law,  utterly  wfithout  means  or 
power  of  purging  himself.  Had  the  case  been  closed  with  his 
act  of  disobedience  the  penalty  must  immediately  have  super¬ 
vened,  for  reasons  which  will  appear,  and  as  a  consequence  the 
race  would  have  perished  in  its  root.  Under  law  the  race  did 
so  perish. 

Such  was  the  effect  of  the  Adam  sin  upon  himself  under  law. 
It  made  him  guilty,  left  him  abnormal,  and  slew  him.  The  law 
result  was  death,  utter  and  perpetual. 

But  the  race  did  not  perish  ;  the  sentence  was  not  executed, 
if  so  be  this  result  was  included  in  it.  What  is  the  explana¬ 
tion  ?  Why  did  not  the  law  take  its  course  ? 

What  did  happen  was  an  interposed  redemption;  the  law 
course  was  estopped.  The  veil  of  oblivion  is  forever  thrown 
over  what  would  have  been,  and  we  see  only  the  course  of 
events  under  redemption. 

The  Adam  did  not  immediately  die  a  physical  death  for  his 
sin,  but  lived ;  but  he  was  not  the  same  Adam  he  was  at  first. 
He  was  Adam  the  fallen:  a  sinner — out  of  favor — under  sentence 
— bowed  with  the  consciousness  of  guilt — driven  from  Eden — 
his  heritage  and  his  heart  clouded  with  sin  and  curse — the 
moral  glory  and  strength  of  his  life  departed — self-centered 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


and,  under  the  frown  of  his  Maker,  exposed  to  endless  wrath ; 
jet  he  was  Adam  reprieved :  provisionally  redeemed ;  offered 
pardon ;  placed  under  circumstances  of  mercy ;  encouraged 
and  helped  to  regain  his  lost  position  of  favor ;  the  sentence 
still  over  him,  but  possible  to  be  lifted ;  restoration,  not  to  his 
old  position,  but  to  a  better,  offered  on  practicable  conditions. 
The  law  left  to  its  own  course  would  have  cut  the  tree  of 
.humanity  down  before  it  branched;  blasted  the  potentialities 
in  the  uprooted  stock.  This  point  will  be  further  discussed 
after  we  shall  have  presented  another  and  extremely  different 
theory — the  theory  of  original  sin,  as  popularly  held. 

There  are  three  theories  of  the  effect  of  Adam’s  sin  upon  his 
posterity,  or,  more  properly,  upon  his  nature  and  that  of  his 
descendants. 

The  first,  in  the  order  in  which  we  shall  notice  them,  is  com¬ 
monly  called  the  Pelagian  view,  from  the  name  of  its  most 
illustrious  expounder. 

The  effects  that  have  resulted  from  Adam's  sin  are  effects 
confessed  by  all ;  effects  modified  and  limited  by  supervening 
redemption,  and  which  as  to  his  posterity  could  not  have  been 
possible  without  redemption.  AY e  have  already  said  that 
precisely  what  might  have  been  the  course  of  events  under- 
law,  as  to  Adam,  we  do  not  know,  but  can  only  imperfectly 
conjecture. 

But,  whilst  we  do  not  know  precisely  what  might  in  fact 
have  occurred,  we  do  know  intuitively  and  absolutelv  some 
things  that  could  not  have  occurred  under  the  government  of 
an  infinitely  wise  and  just,  much  more  under  the  government 
of  an  infinitely  good  and  loving,  God.  And  among  the 
things  thus  known  this  is  most  conspicuous :  he  could  not  have 
been  permitted  to  live  and  propagate  a  race  the  individuals  of 
which  race  should,  because  of  any  actual  or  hypothetical  rela¬ 
tion  they  sustained  to  him — any  imputation  of  his  act,  or 


Punishment. 


derivation  of  his  nature — be  accounted  guilty  and  come  under 
sentence  of  curse;  which  is  only  saying  that  he  could  not  have  be¬ 
come  father  to  a  race  already  damned. 

The  corollary  of  this  postulate  is,  either  under  course  of  law 
he  would  have  had  no  posterity,  or  children  born  to  him  would 
not  have  inherited  his  curse  but  would  have  had  a  fair  in¬ 
dividual  trial.  Since  the  latter  could  scarcely  be,  with  the 
effects  of  his  sin  upon  his  nature  and  theirs,  and  his  sinful 
example  and  unholy  influence  upon  them  during  infancy  and 
youth,  the  periods  of  inexperience,  the  former  would  have  been 
the  alternative ;  he  would  have  had  no  posterity. 

The  law  cut  Adam  down  ;  he  was  legally  dead ,  but  redemption 
interposed  and  restored  him. 

The  question  now  before  us  is,  "What  was  the  status  of 
the  redeemed  Adam  and  of  his  posterity?  To  this  we 
answer : 

1.  He  was  permitted,  under  the  redemption,  to  live  for  a  time 
on  the  earth  instead  of  being  precipitated  at  once  into  utter 
death. 

2.  He  was  granted  a  new  probation,  with  such  gracious  helps 
as  placed  pardon  for  his  sin  and  restoration  to  the  divine  favor 
in  his  reach. 

3.  His  nature  was  corrupted  by  his  sin,  and  so  remains  until 
it  is  regenerated  by  the  divine  Spirit. 

4.  Under  the  redemption  he  was  restored  to  the  forfeited 
privilege  of  the  headship  of  a  race,  but  with  the  consequence 
to  the  race — and  to  himself — that  it  should  inherit  the  evils  of 
his  depravity  and  the  conditions  of  the  new  probation  under 
redemption.  His  life  upon  earth  should  be  one  of  manifold 
sorrows  and  struggles,  and  should  inevitably  end  in  physical 
death. 

5.  If  he  should  repent,  and  avail  himself  of  the  proffered 
pardon  and  regeneration  procured  by  and  offered  in  redemp- 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


tion,  winch  though  powerless  in  himself  he  should  be  enabled 
to  do  by  a  divine  empowering  that  would  come  to  him,  he 
should,  after  a  life  of  trial,  warfare,  and  suffering  on  the 
earth,  finally  attain  to  the  everlasting  life  of  bliss  and  holi¬ 
ness  which  he  would  have  attained  by  obedience  had  he  never 
sinned. 

6.  He  was  permitted  to  beget  children  in  the  likeness  of  his 
fallen  nature,  but  under  provisions  of  redemption. 

This  we  conceive  is  a  fair  and  sufficiently  full  statement  in 
this  connection  of  the  condition  into  which  the  redemption 
brought  the  Adam  and  his  posterity.  It  placed  him  on  a 
new  platform  of  probation,  but  he  commenced  his  new  proba¬ 
tion  not  as  he  commenced  the  old.  Then  he  was  pure  and 
innocent,  and  his  probation  was  to  test  whether  he  would 
remain  so  and  by  obedience  attain  to  a  holy  character.  Now 
he  was  fallen,  and  his  probation  was  to  test  whether  he  would 
penitently  accept  help.  His  guilt  then  was  to  arise  from  diso¬ 
bedience.  His  guilt  now  was  a  fact  to  arise  from  his  rejection 
of  proffered  mercy.  Eden  closed  against  him,  under  the  law, 
because  he  had  sinned.  Heaven  closes  against  him,  under  re¬ 
demption,  because  he  will  not  repent. 

To  this  answer  I  know  of  no  objection  except  upon  the  single 
point  of  the  effect  of  the  Adam  sin  upon  his  nature,  and  by 
consequence  upon  his  posterity. 

From  this  the  Pelagian  view  dissents.  As  we  understand 
them  they  hold,  from  Pelagius  to  Bellows,  the  so-called  liberal 
Christians  of  to-day,  that  the  sin  of  Adam,  which  consisted  in 
an  act,  did  not  at  all  affect  his  nature,  but  only  his  personal  re¬ 
lations  to  law ;  his  nature  remained  the  same  after  as  before  the 
act.  There  was  no  subjective  change  wrought,  but  only  a  new 
relation  of  the  subject  to  violated  law.  If  any  change  in  the 
subject,  it  was  only  the  presence  of  the  power  of  habit — a  tend¬ 
ency  to  repeat  a  once-performed  act.  James  Freeman  Clarke, 


Punishment. 


127 


a  candid  critic  generally,  and  certainly  fair  wlien  lie  represents 
liberal  Christianity ,  so  called,  thus  states  the  view  as  now  held : 

“Liberal  Christianity  regards  man,  not  as  in  a  state  of  disease 
and  needing  medicine,  but  as  in  a  state  of  health,  needing  diet, 
exercise,  and  favorable  circumstances,  in  order  that  he  may 
grow  up  a  well-developed  individual.  It  regards  sin,  not  as  a 
radical  disease  with  which  all  men  are  born,  but  as  a  tem¬ 
porary  malady  to  which  all  are  liable.  It  does  not,  therefore, 
necessarily  dwell  on  sin  and  salvation,  but  on  duty  and  im¬ 
provement.  Man’s  nature  it  regards  as  radically  good,  and 
even  divine,  because  made  by  God.”  * 

Dr.  Bellows  f  holds  this  language :  “  Who,  for  instance,  will 
wish  to  conceal  or  deny  the  hereditary  descent  of  dangerous 
propensities  any  more  than  of  good  and  beautiful  dispositions  ? 
W e  do  not  deny  that  goiter,  consumption,  gout,  are  hereditary, 
but  we  do  not  allow  that  this  shows  the  human  body  to  be  de¬ 
praved  in  its  origin  or  constitution.  When  we  take  away  the 
subjects  of  these  diseases  from  the  circumstances  that  produced 
them  they  recover,  and  in  a  generation  or  two  their  diseases 
are  extinguished.  There  is  a  resistance  to  them  in  the  body, 
which,  assisted,  may  overcome  them.  Obedient  to  this  anal¬ 
ogy,  I  would  not  deny  hereditary  tendencies  to  rage,  to  jealousy, 
to  insanity.  The  mind  may  be  diseased,  and  through  its  con¬ 
nection  with  the  body  may  be  propagated  in  a  diseased  con¬ 
dition.  But  this  proves  nothing  against  the  truth,  or  rectitude, 
or  wholesomeness  of  human  nature,  more  than  a  murrain 
among  sheep  establishes  the  general  defect  of  that  creature’s 
final  cause,  to  produce  wool  and  food  for  man.  We  recognize 
the  hereditary  defects  as  diseases,  excrescences,  perversions  of 
human  nature,  and  treat  them  as  such ;  not  as  its  normal  he¬ 
reditary  and  wholesome  condition.  The  real  question  is,  How 

*  Orthodoxy :  its  Truth ,  etc.,  p.  134. 

f  Restatement  of  Christian  Doctrine ,  p.  219. 


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deep  and  how  common  is  this  alleged  discord  ?  Is  it  total,  or 
vast,  or  general?  Has  it  not  been  immensely  exaggerated? 
Has  not  the  disposition  to  treat  the  sonl  as  sick  been  at  least  as 
common  an  error  as  to  treat  the  body  as  sick — and  have  not 
both  of  them  been  overdosed  and  overwatched  ?  It  is  the  want 
of  food,  and  not  of  medicine,  which  has  impoverished  whole 
races  and  tribes.  Hereditary  diseases,  prevalent  as  they  are, 
are  not  the  common  causes  of  physical  degeneracy,  but  bad 
habits,  self-indulgence,  poor  diet,  or  hardship  and  toil.  And 
so  of  the  soul.  Its  hereditary  disorders,  not  to  be  denied,  are 
not  its  chief  difficulties,  but  its  present  want  of  light,  educa¬ 
tion,  encouragement,  confidence,  sympathy,  and  help.”  On 
page  260  he  continues :  “  There  is,  then,  doubtless  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  this  showing,  a  real  and  grand  truth  in  the  cath¬ 
olic  doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man  in  Adam.  Adam  stood  for  and 
represents  his  race.  Any  other  man  in  his  circumstances 
would  have  acted  as  he  acted.  It  was  not  Adam’s  nature  that 
fell,  but  merely  he  himself ;  that  is  to  say,  his  nature  was  no 
other  after  his  fall  than  before.  It  was  no  more  weak  than  be¬ 
fore.  For,  if  stronger  before  he  fell  than  since,  how  did  he 
yield  so  easily  to  temptation  ?  No  !  Adam’s  nature  was  illus¬ 
trated,  not  changed,  by  his  fall.  He  was  created  liable  to  and 
certain  of  his  fall.  And  his  fall  was  simply  an  exhibition  and 
evidence  of  his  total  inability  to  keep  the  commandment  of 
God  in  his  own  independent  strength ;  that  is  to  say,  his  in¬ 
tellect  and  conscience  were  made  so  much  more  powerful  than 
his  will  that  he  was  constituted  to  see  and  feel  the  obligative- 
ness  of  duties  which  he  had  no  adequate  resolution  and  power 
of  character  to  observe  and  perform.” 

This,  we  must  think,  is  a  superficial  view,  and  one  which 
fails  entirely  to  account  for  well-known  facts  of  human  con¬ 
sciousness,  not  less  than  it  fails  to  accord  with  direct  teachings 
of  revelation.  The  universality  of  a  depraved  disposition  in 


Punishment. 


129 


man  is  indisputable  and,  as  discoverable  in  the  earliest  infancy, 
can  have  no  other  solution  than  that  of  transmission — an  hered¬ 
itary  virus,  or  weakness,  or  tendency  to  yield  to  proffered  sin, 
which  did  not  exist  until  after  the  fall.  It  may  not  be  possi¬ 
ble  to  determine  precisely  in  what  the  depravity  consists,  or 
how  the  effect  is  propagated,  but  the  fact  is  among  the  most 
pronounced  and  indisputable  of  the  facts  of  human  nature.  It 
is  not  more  apparent  that  it  is  of  the  nature  of  an  acorn  to  pro¬ 
duce  an  oak,  or  a  tiger  to  be  ferocious,  than  it  is  for  man  born 
of  Adam  to  be  depraved.  The  invariability  of  the  actual  effect 
in  each  case  proclaims  the  nature  cause,  and  in  one  no  more 
than  the  other.  The  fact  that  each  •  man  sins  might  be  ac¬ 
counted  for,  it  is  true,  without  a  depraved  nature,  even  as  Adam 
sinned  at  first  without  depravity ;  possibly  even  more  easily 
as  the  case  of  every  successor  of  the  first  transgressor — we  have 
the  influence  of  his  example,  and  of  the  examples,  indeed,  of  all 
of  his  successors  ;  but  it  is  not  the  mere  fact  of  sin  that  is  to  be 
accounted  for,  but  the  fact  of  the  invariable  and  deeji-seated  im¬ 
pulse  to  it  of  which  we  are  conscious,  and  which  is  ever  bear¬ 
ing  us,  like  a  resistless  tide,  even  against  our  protests  and 
struggles ;  whose  power  we  constantly  feel  and  are  impotent  in 
ourselves  to  subdue.  That  we  sin  is  our  fault,  and  we  never 
sin  that  we  do  not  feel  this  ;  but  that  we  are  inclined  to  sin,  feel 
ourselves  almost  forcibly  impelled,  we  can  no  more  doubt  or 
prevent  than  we  can  exist  without  breathing.  Neither  habit 
nor  example  will  account  for  this.  It  belongs  to  our  nature. 
Did  it  belong  to  the  Adam  before  the  fall?  That  before  the 
fall  he  was  susceptible  to  the  attractions  of  evil,  that  he  could 
feel  temptation,  that  there  was  that  in  his  nature  which  might 
be  enticed,  cannot  be  disputed.  Otherwise  he  would  have  been 
an  unmoral  being,  and  could  not  have  sinned.  But  is  there 
not  reason  to  believe  that  the  impulses  and  tendencies  of  his 
nature  were  characteristically  to  the  good,  that  his  spontaneity 


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was  toward  the  ought?  That  was  nature ,  then.  To  sin  was 
possible,  but  we  must  believe  not  unavoidable.  There  was 
harmony.  The  potentates  in  the  new-made  soul  dwelt  together 
in  peace.  The  lower  and  baser  powers  were  peacefully  sub¬ 
missive  to  the  behests  of  the  higher  and  nobler.  The  drift  and 
boom  of  nature  set  toward  righteousness. 

It  certainly  is  not  so  now.  There  is  a  tendency  to  evil  inher¬ 
ent  in  human  nature.  To  Dr.  Bellows’s  question,  “How  deep 
and  how  common  is  this  alleged  discord  ?  Is  it  total,  or  vast,  or 
general  ?  ”  we  are  constrained  to  answer :  It  is  so  deep  that  it 
defies  the  unaided  skill  or  power  of  man  to  eradicate  it;  so 
total  that  it  slimes  and  pollutes  every  affection  and  faculty  of 
the  human  soul ;  so  common  and  vast  and  general  that  not  a 
single  child  of  Adam  that  ever  lived  on  this  planet  has  escaped 
it,  save  the  immaculate  Son  of  God.  He  must,  indeed,  have 
lived  to  little  purpose  on  this  globe  who  has  not  seen  in  every 
life  about  him,  and  felt  in  every  fiber  of  his  own  being,  the 
world-wide,  ages-long,  and  death-dealing  contagion. 

Ho ;  it  is  not  a  murrain  that  has  attacked,  here  and  there, 
and  at  intervals,  exceptional  flocks ;  not  a  peculiar  fever  that 
has  intermittently  appeared  along  the  ages  in  unique  condi¬ 
tions  ;  not  a  corruption  of  blood  that  has  broken  out  in  special 
families.  It  is  the  disease  of  Adam’s  race  which  has  blasted 
every  heart  of  his  long  line  of  degenerate  children. 

We  do  not  pretend  that  nothing  good  and  beautiful  remains  in 
humanity — no  natural  sweetnesses ;  no  high  and  noble  virtues ; 
no  delicate  and  Godlike  ethicalities  and  sensibilities ;  but  this 
only :  that  they  are  so  rare  and  so  hindered  in  their  growth, 
and  so  unique,  that  when  we  come  upon  their  bloom  they  ex¬ 
cite  our  wonder,  and  when  we  inquire  into  their  history  they 
are  found  to  be,  after  all,  but  instinctive  and  selfish  forms  of 
affection,  resembling  moral  virtues;  or,  if  real,  that  they  are  the 
product  of  struggle  and  tedious  culture,  which  have  con- 


Punishment. 


131 


sciously  and  graciously  supplanted  or  transformed  more  primi¬ 
tive  evils  and  vices.  We  are  ready  to  admit  that  in  no  case  is 
the  depravity  total ;  that  there  is  no  desert  so  bleak  and  barren 
that  no  single  flower  relieves  its  waste  and  arid  bosom ;  that  no 
heart  is  utterly  and  totally  dead  to  all  forms  of  goodness. 
Nay,  we  are  not  only  disposed  to  admit  this,  we  rejoice  to  be¬ 
lieve  it  Total  evil  is  unknown  upon  earth,  but  we  find  the 
reason  for  this  not  in  the  fact  that  our  nature  does  not  strongly 
set  toward  evil — nay,  in  its  own  motions,  exclusively — but  in 
the  other  fact  that  counter-currents  of  life  and  regeneration  are 
let  into  it  from  God,  in  the  grace  of  redemption.  Whilst  ad¬ 
mitting  the  existence  of  much  that  is  beautiful  and  good  in  the 
heart  of  nature,  apparently  blooming  outside  the  garden  of  grace- 
and  seeming  to  contradict  the  idea  of  a  moral  fall,  we  ought  not  to 
forget  either  that  many  most  lovely  graces  are  not  virtues ;  that, 
on  the  contrary,  ethically  they  are  vices — mere  forms  of  selfish¬ 
ness  or,  at  best,  instinctive  affections ;  good,  it  may  be,  for  their 
end,  but  indicating  no  moral  quality.  Beneath  the  most  profuse 
bloom  of  these  natural  and  instinctive  graces,  as  they  are  called, 
many  times  lies  a  subsoil  of  sinful  proclivity :  a  nature  estranged 
from  God,  dead  to  all  spiritual  consciousness  ;  a  grave  in  which 
decay  reigns — utter  selfishness  and  earthiness  and  lust,  the  de¬ 
cay  of  moral  death ;  a  sepulcher  fair  to  look  upon  without,  but 
within  full  of  dead  men’s  bones.  Human  nature,  if  ever  dis¬ 
posed  to  obedience  unto  righteousness,  is  fallen ;  for  it  certainly 
is  not  so  disposed  now.  Its  spontaneity  is  to  sin. 

We  must  not  be  supposed,  in  predicating  a  fall  of  human 
nature  in  Adam,  to  believe  that  some  new  element  was  added  to 
it,  or  some  old  essence  subtracted  from  it,  by  which  it  became 
a  different  nature,  or  man  a  different  being.  The  fall  was  a  fall 
from  righteousness  into  sin  ;  a  personal  fall ;  a  fall  in  his  rela¬ 
tions  to  law :  from  favor  to  wrath ;  from  innocence  to  guilt ; 
from  obedience  to  disobedience ;  a  fall  by  a  rebellious  act  of 


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will ;  a  fall  out  of  tlie  normal  and  right  nse  of  his  powers  into 
a  vile  use ;  a  going  over  of  his  entire  personality  from  God  to 
self.  The  act  transformed  him,  as  sin  must  every  nature  that  it 
touches.  God’s  frown  darkened  his  soul ;  a  sense  of  guilt  cor¬ 
roded  his  conscience ;  his  jewels  were  gone ;  he  was  in  the  mire. 
Where  God  had  been,  and  conscience  and  reason  the  revered 
and  honored  sovereigns,  self  had  come,  and  pride  and  lust,  and 
they  reigned.  One  act  of  will  had  opened  the  floodgates,  and 
the  currents  were  turned  the  other  way.  The  fall  was  complete. 
The  Adam — made  in  the  image  of  God ;  made  to  find  his  im¬ 
mortal  good  in  obedience ;  made  to  live  in  fellowship  with  God, 
and  to  enjoy  God  forever — discrowned  and  debauched,  with  his 
head  and  heart  bowed  downward  to  the  earth,  was  driven  from 
his  paradise,  henceforth  to  know  righteousness  but  to  love  sin ; 
to  see  the  good  but  to  pursue  the  evil ;  pursue  it  of  preference, 
but  against  the  goadings  of  conscience,  reproaches  of  reason,  and 
pains  of  punishment :  an  utter  fall,  into  utter  sin  and  utter  death, 
but  for  interposed  redemption. 

This  was  the  effect  of  the  Adam’s  sin  upon  himself.  We 
come  now  to  consider  its  effect  upon  his  posterity. 

We  have  already  seen  that,  after  he  became  a  sinner,  he 
could  have  had  neither  continued  life  nor  posterity. 

Our  question  now  is,  How,  being  raised  to  the  privilege  of 
a  posterity  by  redemption,  did  his  fallen  condition  affect  his  off¬ 
spring  ?  Some  aspects  of  this  question  will  be  discussed  when 
we  come  to  consider  redemption.  For  the  present  we  assume 
that  the  race  exists  through  redemption  of  its  head,  and  in  re¬ 
demption  for  itself ;  but  its  natural  head,  though  redeemed,  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  fallen.  Redemption  did  not  affect  either  his 
actual  relations  to  law  or  his  nature.  It  left  him  in  both  his  guilt 
and  depravity,  only  providing  pardon  for  him  and  the  grace  of 
renewal  on  conditions.  He  was  still  the  fallen  Adam  as  much 
after  redemption  as  he  was  before,  but  help  was  extended  to  him. 


Punishment. 


19  o 

OO 

His  children  inherited  his  fallen  nature.  TYe  have  already 
seen  that  it  is  universal.  W e  now  say  it  is  by  transmission.  In 
whatever  it  consists  it  descends  from  its  ancient  root.  It  is  not 
a  fall  of  each  individual  humanity  for  itself  and  by  itself,  but 
a  fall  of  all  in  or,  as  we  prefer,  through  the  head ;  a  derived 
fall ;  the  polluted  fountain  uttered  a  degenerate  stream ;  the 
corruption  and  degeneracy  flowed  all  along  the  lines  and  touched 
all  the  atoms  of  the  issue.  From  the  maimed  father  came  a 
race  of  maimed  children.  The  maim  was  abnormal,  alien  to 
the  original  nature,  not  of  it ;  but  it  was  interwoven  with  it, 
corporate  and  inseparable  in  all  its  parts;  a  superinduced 
nature,  taking  the  place  of  the  old.  If  any  choose  to  call  it  a 
habit  we  do  not  object,  if  they  have  in  mind  that  it  is  a  habit 
conveyed  by  generation  and  inoculating  the  very  germ  of  the 
beins; — an  inborn  tendencv. 

TY e  are  now  prepared  for  the  question,  Is  the  inherited  fallen 
nature  guilt  ?  or,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word,  sin  ?  To  the 
question,  Is  human  nature  fallen  ?  we  have  been  constrained  to 
answer,  against  the  ancient  Pelagian  and  recent  liberal  teaching, 
in  the  affirmative.  To  the  question  now  raised,  Is  inherited 
degeneracy  ground  of  guilt  ?  we  are  constrained  to  answer, 
against  Calvinism,  in  the  negative. 

There  is,  we  think,  abundant  evidence  that  the  two  errors 
have  close  relation  to  each  other.  Augustine  was  father  to 
Pelagius ;  Calvin  sire  of  Channing.  The  extreme  view,  by  a 
necessary  law,  produced  its  opposite.  Liberal  Christianity,  so 
called,  is  the  maimed  offspring  of  illiberal  Christianity.  The 
making  that  evil  to  be  sin  which  is  not  sin,  on  the  part  of  the 
one,  became  the  reason  on  the  part  of  the  other  for  calling  the 
evil  good.  Edwards  pronounced  inherited  depravity  damnable ; 
Bellows  declares  it  divine !  Beyond  all  dispute  both  are  wrong. 
The  protest  of  the  one  does  away  with  sinfulness  of  sin ;  the 
dosrma  of  the  other  makes  that  to  be  sin  which  cannot  be  sin. 

O 

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Studies  in  Theology. 


The  reaction  is  perfectly  natural,  but  extreme.  The  denial  of 
guilt  to  a  nature  was  just;  but  the  assertion  that  human  nature 
is  normal,  as  well  as  innocent,  is  wide  of  the  mark.  I  scarcely 
know  of  forty  other  pages  in  all  print  in  which  there  is  such  an 
admixture  of  truth  and  error — such  brilliant  inconsequence — as 
in  the  pages  between  218  and  260  of  Bellows’s  Restatement  of 
Christian  Doctrine ,  unless  the  exception  might  be  found  in  Dr. 
Shedd's  article  on  Original  Sin,  the  very  title  of  which,  in  its 
first  appearance,  “  Sin  a  Nature ;  That  Nature  Guilt,”  was  a 
contradiction.  Of  the  two  errors  Calvinism  is  the  more  damag¬ 
ing  to  the  character  of  God,  Pelagianism  is  more  dangerous  to 
the  morality  of  men ;  both  harmful  in  the  extreme,  but  both 
having  fundamental  truth  underlying  the  error.  Pelagianism 
is  superficial,  inconsequent,  and  flippant,  its  influence  weaken¬ 
ing  to  law  and  encouraging  to  sin,  but  in  spirit  and  temper  it  is 
humane  and  merciful ;  careless  of  the  weightier  matters,  it  is 
most  careful  of  the  mint  and  cumin  of  external  cultus.  Cal¬ 
vinism  is  profound,  logical,  and  austere ;  its  influence  conserva¬ 
tive  of  law  and  repressive  of  sin  ;  but  in  spirit  it  is  severe,  in¬ 
human,  and  unjust,  enthroning  cruelty  and  power  above  equity 
and  love.  If  the  former  subverts  sovereignty  by  justifying 
lawlessness,  the  latter  overthrows  it  by  rendering  rebellion  more 
righteous  than  loyalty.  The  God  of  the  one  is  an  amusing 
toy  ;  the  Jehovah  of  the  other  a  frightful  Moloch. 

The  doctrine  that  the  fallen  nature  carries  guilt  to  all  who 
possess  it ;  that  guilt  is  transmitted  from  Adam  to  all  his  de¬ 
scendants  ;  that  we  are  bom  in  sin  and  liable  to  all  its  penalties ; 
that  each  child  of  man  brings  into  the  world,  as  its  sad  inherit¬ 
ance,  the  sufficient  causes  for  its  eternal  damnation ;  that  the  sin 
inherent  in  its  nature  is  the  greatest  possible  sin,  and  just 
reason  for  its  greatest  possible  condemnation,  is  so  strange  a 
doctrine,  so  utterly  repugnant  to  human  reason — to  a  priori 
judgment  of  our  intelligence — that  it  can  with  difficulty  be 


Punishment. 


135 


imagined  that  it  has  ever  been  entertained  by  sane  men.  Yet, 
upon  examination,  it  is  found  that  it  has  for  its  sponsors  many 
among  the  wisest  and  best  men  that  have  lived  along  the  ages. 

Those  who  contend  for  the  guilt  of  inherited  depravity,  or  of 
a  nature  which  fatally  tends  to  sin,  which  includes  almost  the 
entire  Church  through  all  the  centuries,  differ  widely  among 
themselves  in  methods  of  explaining  and  defending  the  doc¬ 
trine,  one  class  subverting  the  other.  The  different  theories  are 
thus  given  by  Dr.  Hodge : 

“  1.  That  which  is  adopted  by  Protestants  generally,  as  well 
Lutherans  as  Reformed,  and  also  by  the  great  body  of  the 
Latin  (Roman  Catholic)  Church  is,  that  in  virtue  of  the  union, 
federal  and  natural,  between  Adam  and  his  posterity,  his  sin, 
although  not  their  act,  is  so  imputed  to  them  that  it  is  the  judi¬ 
cial  ground  of  the  penalty  threatened  against  him  also  coming 
upon  them.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  immediate  imputation. 

“ 2 .  Others,  while  they  admit  that  a  corrupt  nature  is  de¬ 
rived  from  Adam  by  all  his  ordinary  posterity,  yet  deny,  first, 
that  this  corruption  or  spiritual  death  is  penal  infliction  for  his 
sin ;  and,  second,  that  there  is  any  imputation  to  Adam’s  de¬ 
scendants  of  the  guilt  of  his  first  sin.  All  that  is  really  imputed 
to  them  is  their  own  inherent  hereditary  depravity.  This  is 
the  doctrine  of  mediate  imputation. 

u  3.  Others  discard  entirely  the  idea  of  imputation,  so  far  as 
Adam’s  sin  is  concerned,  and  refer  the  hereditary  corruption  of 
man  to  the  general  law  of  propagation.  Throughout  the  vege¬ 
table  and  animal  kingdoms  like  begets  like.  Man  is  not  an  ex¬ 
ception  to  that  law.  Adam,  having  lost  his  original  righteous¬ 
ness  and  corrupted  his  nature  by  his  apostasy,  transmits  that 
despoiled  and  deteriorated  nature  to  all  his  descendants.  To 
what  extent  man’s  nature  is  injured  by  the  fall  is  left  undeter¬ 
mined  by  this  theory.  According  to  some  it  is  so  deteriorated 

as  tcC  be,  in  the  true  scriptural  sense  of  the  term,  spiritually 

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dead,  while  according  to  others  it  is  little,  if  anything,  more  than 
physical  infirmity  and  impaired  constitution,  which  the  first 
parent  had  transmitted  to  his  children. 

u4.  Others  again  adopt  the  realistic  theory,  and  teach  that 
as  generic  humanity  existed  whole  and  entire  in  the  persons  of 
Adam  and  Eve  their  sin  was  the  sin  of  the  entire  race.  The 
same  numerical,  rational,  and  voluntary  substance  which  acted 
in  the  first  parents  having  been  communicated  to  us,  their  act 
was  as  truly  and  perfectly  our  act,  being  the  act  of  our  reason 
and  will,  as  it  was  their  act.  It  is  imputed  to  us,  therefore,  not 
as  his,  but  as  our  own.  W e  literally  sinned  in  Adam,  and  conse- 
cpiently  the  guilt  of  that  sin  is  our  personal  guilt,  and  the  conse- 
cpient  corruption  of  nature  is  the  effect  of  our  own  voluntary  act. 

u  5.  Others,  finally,  deny  any  causal  relation,  whether  logical 
or  natural,  whether  judicial  or  physical,  between  the  sin  of  Adam 
and  the  sinfulness  of  his  race.  Some  who  take  this  ground  say 
that  it  was  a  divine  constitution,  that  if  Adam  sinned  all  men 
should  sin.  The  one  event  was  connected  with  the  other  only 
in  the  divine  purpose.  Others  say  that  there  is  no  necessity  to 
account  for  the  fact  that  all  men  are  sinners  further  than  refer¬ 
ring  it  to  their  liberty  of  will.  Adam  sinned,  and  other  men  sin. 
That  is  all.  The  one  fact  is  as  easily  accounted  for  as  the  other.  ’’  * 
The  theories  all  make  the  sin  of  Adam,  in  some  form,  or  for 
some  reason,  imputatively  the  sin  of  the  race  descending  from 
him.  His  guilty  act  either  directly  or  indirectly  inculpates  all 
in  a  common  guilt.  To  impute  means  to  regard  or  account 
something  as  personal  which  is  not  personal,  but  which  is  de¬ 
rived  by  way  of  another.  u  The  ground  of  the  imputation  of 
Adam’s  sin,  or  the  reason  why  the  penalty  of  his  sin  has  come 
upon  all  his  posterity,  according  to  the  doctrine  above  stated,  is 
the  union  between  us  and  Adam.  There  could,  of  course,  have 
been  no  propriety  in  imputing  the  sin  of  one  man  to  another 
*  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  192,  193. 


6 


Punishment. 


137 


unless  there  were  some  connection  between  them  to  explain  and 
justify  such  imputation.”  * 

The  theory  of  Augustine,  as  the  most  prominent,  and  as 
involving  in  its  discussion  the  discussion  of  all  the  rest,  may 
be  properly  introduced  first.  It  justly  takes  his  name  because 
it  undoubtedly  originated  with  him,  as  well  as  because  through 
his  influence  it  obtained  wide  and  lasting  sway  over  the 
Church.  The  prominence  with  which  Calvin  brought  it  for¬ 
ward  in  the  Reformation  period,  and  its  adoption  by  the  family 
of  churches  which  sprang  from  him,  has  associated  it  with  his 
name,  and  it  is  now  most  generally  designated  Calvinism. 
With  unimportant  variations  as  formulated  in  different  creeds 
it  is  substantially  this,  as  given  in  the  W estminster  Confession, 
under  the  article,  “  Of  the  fall  of  man,  of  sin,  and  of  the  punish¬ 
ment  thereof,”  and  the  Assembly  Catechism: 

“By  this  sin  they  fell  from  their  original  righteousness  and 
communion  with  God,  and  so  became  dead  in  sin  and  wholly 
defiled  in  all  the  faculties  and  parts  of  soul  and  body. 

“  They  being  the  root  of  all  mankind,  the  guilt  of  their  sin 
was  imputed,  and  the  same  death  in  sin  and  corrupted  nature 
conveyed  to  all  their  posterity,  descending  from  them  by  ordi¬ 
nary  generation. 

“From  this  original  corruption,  whereby  we  are  utterly  in¬ 
disposed,  disabled,  and  made  opposite  to  all  good,  and  wholly 
inclined  to  all  evil,  do  proceed  all  actual  transgressions. 

“  Every  sin,  both  original  and  actual,  being  a  transgression  of 
the  righteous  law  of  God,  and  contrary  thereunto,  doth  in  its  own 
nature  bring  guilt  upon  the  sinner,  whereby  he  is  bound  over  to 
the  wrath  of  God  and  curse  of  the  law,  and  so  made  subject 
to  death,  with  all  miseries  spiritual,  temporal,  and  eternal.  ”f 

“The  sinfulness  of  that  estate  whereinto  man  fell  consisteth 


10 


*  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  196. 
f  Confession  of  Faith ,  cbap.  vi,  secs.  2,  3,  4,  6. 


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in  the  guilt  of  Adam’s  first  sin,  the  want  of  that  righteousness 
wherein  he  was  created,  and  the  corruption  of  his  nature, 
whereby  he  is  utterly  indisposed,  disabled,  and  made  oppo¬ 
site  to  all  that  is  spiritually  good,  and  wholly  inclined  to  all 
evil,  and  that  continually ;  which  is  commonly  called  original 
sin,  and  from  which  do  proceed  all  actual  transgressions. 

“  Original  sin  is  conveyed  from  our  first  parents  unto  their 
posterity  by  natural  generation,  so  as  all  that  proceed  from  them 
in  that  way  are  conceived  and  born  in  sin. 

“  The  fall  brought  upon  mankind  the  loss  of  communion  with 
God,  his  displeasure  and  curse ;  so  as  we  are  by  nature  children 
of  wrath,  bondslaves  to  Satan,  and  justly  liable  to  all  punish¬ 
ment  in  this  world  and  that  which  is  to  come.'’* 

“  The  punishments  of  sin  in  this  world  are  either  inward,  as 
blindness  of  mind,  a  reprobate  sense,  strong  delusions,  hardness 
of  heart,  horror  of  conscience,  and  vile  affections ;  or  outward, 
as  the  curse  of  God  upon  the  creatures  for  our  sake,  and  all 
other  evils  that  befall  us  in  our  bodies,  names,  estates,  relations, 
and  employments,  together  with  death  itself. 

“  The  punishments  of  sin  in  the  world  to  come  are  everlast¬ 
ing  separation  from  the  comfortable  presence  of  God,  and  most 
grievous  torments  in  soul  and  body,  without  intermission,  in 
hell  fire  forever.’'  f 

That  we  may  see  with  what  justice  the  doctrine  is  attributable 
to  Augustine  a  brief  quotation  only  will  be  necessary : 

“  As  all  men  have  sinned  in  Adam,  they  are  justly  exposed 
to  the  vengeance  of  God,  because  of  this  hereditary  sin  and  guilt 
of  sin.”  % 

Calvin’s  view  is  expressed  in  these  words : 

“To  remove  all  uncertainty  and  misunderstanding  on  the 

*  Larger  Catechism,  Answers  to  Questions  25-27- 
f  Answers  to  Questions  28,  29. 
t  Hagenbach,  History  of  Doctrine ,  vol.  i,  p.  323. 


Punishment. 


139 


subject  let  us  define  original  sin.  It  is  not  my  intention  to 
discuss  all  the  definitions  given  by  writers ;  I  shall  only  pro¬ 
duce  one,  which  I  think  perfectly  consistent  with  the  truth. 
Original  sin,  therefore,  appears  to  be  an  hereditary  pravity 
and  corruption  of  our  nature  diffused  through  all  the  parts  of 
the  soul,  rendering  us  obnoxious  to  the  divine  wrath,  and  pro¬ 
ducing  in  us  those  works  which  the  Scripture  calls  ‘works  of  the 
flesh.’  And  this  is,  indeed,  what  Paul  frequently  denominates 
sin.  The  works  which  proceed  thence,  such  as  adulteries, 
fornications,  thefts,  hatreds,  murders,  revelings,  he  calls  in  the 
same  manner  ‘  fruits  of  sin ;  ’  although  they  are  also  called 
‘  sins  ’  in  many  passages  of  Scripture  and  even  by  himself. 
These  two  things,  therefore,  should  be  distinctly  observed  :  first, 
that,  our  nature  being  so  totally  vitiated  and  depraved,  we  are 
on  account  of  this  corruption  considered  as  convicted  and  justly 
condemned  in  the  sight  of  God,  to  whom  nothing  is  acceptable 
but  righteousness,  innocence,  and  purity.  And  this  liableness 
to  punishment  arises  not  from  the  delinquency  of  another ;  for 
when  it  is  said  that  the  sin  of  Adam  renders  us  obnoxious  to 
the  divine  judgment  it  is  not  to  be  understood  as  if  we,  though 
innocent,  were  undeservedly  loaded  with  the  guilt  of  his  sin ; 
but  because  we  are  all  subject  to  a  curse,  in  consequence  of  his 
transgression,  he  is  said  therefore  to  have  involved  us  in  guilt. 
Nevertheless  we  derived  from  him  not  only  the  punishment, 
but  also  the  pollution  to  which  the  punishment  is  justly  due. 
Wherefore  Augustine,  though  he  frequently  calls  it  the  sin  of 
another,  the  more  clearly  to  indicate  its  transmission  to  us  by 
propagation,  yet  at  the  same  time  also  asserts  it  properly  to  be¬ 
long  to  every  individual.”  * 

It  is  hardly  necessary  that  we  add  further  quotations.  The 
advocates  of  this  doctrine  are  not  ashamed  of  it,  nor  are  they 
wanting  in  boldness  in  its  utterance  and  vindication.  From 

*  Calvin’s  Institutes,  book  ii,  chap,  i,  sec.  8. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


Augustine  to  Hodge  it  is  fortified  by  great  learning  and  tran¬ 
scendent  genius. 

To  the  first  pail;  of  the  doctrine,  namely,  that  all  men  are 
depraved  by  inheritance  from  Adam,  and  by  means  of  his 
first  sin,  we  have  already  signified  our  unqualified  assent. 
To  the  second  part,  namely,  that  our  inherited  depravity  in- 
,  volves  us  in  personal  guilt,  we  shall  now  proceed  to  file  our 
objections. 

In  the  discussions  of  the  nature  of  sin,  occupying  the  earlier 
pages  of  this  treatise,  we  have  already  assigned  conclusive  rea¬ 
sons  for  the  rejection  of  the  doctrine ;  reasons  showing  from  the 
nature  of  sin  itself  that  it  cannot,  as  involving  guilt,  be  predi¬ 
cated  of  a  nature.  W e  propose  now  more  fully  to  examine  the 
reasonings  of  those  who  assert  and  defend  the  dogma. 

The  precise  issue  raised  is,  Does  congenital  depravity — 
natural  corruption,  hereditary  proclivity  to  sin — a  fact  fully 
admitted  by  both  parties,  affirm  guilt  of  the  subject,  irrespec¬ 
tive  of  and  antecedent  to  any  personal  will  action,  or  along 
with  being  itself — guilt  inherited  and  transmitted?  We  deny. 

The  general  ground  of  our  dissent  is  that  the  affirmation  is 
in  conflict  with  the  clearest  dictates  of  natural  justice  and 
a  priori  intuitions  of  reason,  and  is  alike  dishonorable  to  God 
and  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things,  as  it  involves  that  men 
are  made  guilty,  blameworthy,  on  account  of  an  event  which 
transpired  when  as  yet  they  had  no  existence  at  all,  of  any 
kind ;  that  one  man  is  made  guilty  on  account  of  another  man’s 
act  with  which  he  could  have  no  connection  whatever,  since  the 
act  was  committed  before  he  existed ;  and  that  guilt  is  trans¬ 
missible. 

The  grounds  of  the  protest  are  so  obvious,  so  accordant  with 
the  spontaneous  verdicts  of  all  reason,  and  so  apparently  fatal 
to  the  doctrine,  that  an  explanation,  at  least,  is  felt,  by  even  its 
friends,  to  be  an  imperative  demand.  It  is  not,  if  a  truth,  like 


Punishment. 


141 


most  truths,  attractive  of  confidence.  Its  speech,  and  counte¬ 
nance  are  against  it. 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  with  attempts  to  make  it  acceptable, 
great  disharmony  should  arise  among  its  advocates — absolute 
conflicts  as  to  the  grounds  of  defense.  It  could  scarcely  be 
otherwise. 

It  is  at  once  admitted  that  if  there  be  injustice  in  fact,  and 
not  simply  in  seeming,  the  doctrine  must  be  abandoned.  Not 
even  its  most  earnest  defenders  can  continue  their  adherence  in 
the  juesence  of  such  a  refutal. 

Let  us  examine  the  several  methods  of  explanation  and  rec¬ 
onciliation  attempted,  together  with  the  general  supports  of  the 
doctrine. 

It  has  been  said  above  that  the  chief  embarrassment  arises 
from  its  seeming  conflict  with  natural  justice.  In  response  to 
this  strong  prima  facie  against  it,  it  is  argued  that  an  equally 
strong  and  obvious  reason  in  its  support  meets  the  eye  of  the 
reflecting  observer  as  soon  as  he  beholds  human  society,  in  the 
sufferings  which,  as  well  as  sinfulness,  are  universal ;  attacking 
and  destroying  infancy  as  remorselessly  as  age,  suggesting  a 
high  displeasure  against  the  species  itself.  If  the  injustice  of 
alleging  guilt  where  there  has  been  no  crime  bears  against  the 
doctrine  of  inherited  sin,  the  no  less  manifest  injustice  of  pun¬ 
ishment  of  the  innocent  seems  to  furnish  it  support.  If  it  is  a 
maxim  of  justice  that  there  can  be  no  guilt  without  personal 
sin,  it  is  certainly  no  less  a  maxim  that  “there  can  be  no  just 
punishment  where  there  is  not  personal  guilt.”  The  prima 
facie  is  that  all  do  suffer;  it  is  insisted,  therefore,  all  have 
sinned.  If  we  admit  that  all  suffering  is  punishment  of  the 
guilty,  most  certainly  the  argument  is  conclusive.  Thus  it  ap¬ 
pears  that  those  who  contend  for  and  those  who  oppose  the 
doctrine  of  inherited  sin  have,  if  not  precisely  the  same  diffi¬ 
culty  to  meet,  very  analogous  objections  to  answer.  We  have 

6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


already  shown  that  all  sufferings  are  not  punishments.  The 
reply  from  our  side  is  complete ;  it  remains  that  we  attend  to 
the  manner  in  which  those  meet  the  difficulty  who  contend  for 
the  doctrine. 

They  rest  their  defense  upon  two  grounds:  first,  that  the 
doctrine  is  expressly  taught  in  the  word  of  God,  and  that  there¬ 
fore  it  must  be  true,  whatever  seeming  objections  bear  against 
it ;  second,  that,  rightly  understood,  the  apparent  objection  of 
injustice  does  not  bear.  If  they  can  succeed  in  making  good 
either  of  these  positions  they  establish  the  point  in  question,  or 
at  least  remove  the  objection,  and  judgment  must  be  in  their 
favor.  If  a  Bible  doctrine  it  is  true ;  and  if  true  it  cannot 
be  in  conflict  with  justice;  and,  reversely,  if  it  collide  with  jus¬ 
tice  it  cannot  be  true,  and  if  not  true  it  cannot  be  sanctioned  by 
the  word  of  God.  Let  us  examine  the  positions  in  the  reverse 
order,  considering  first  the  explanations  of  the  doctrine  which 
have  been  adopted  to  do  away  with  its  seeming  conflict  with 
justice. 

As  stated  already,  the  advocates  of  the  doctrine  differ  widely, 
and  we  will  add  fundamentally,  in  their  modes  of  defense ;  and 
unfortunately  for  the  point  which  they  seek  to  establish  their 
diverse  modes  are  mutually  subversive — each  class  alternately 
overthrowing  the  arguments  and  reasonings  advanced  by  the 
other.  Dr.  Shedd  thus  laments  this  fact :  11  What  divisions 
and  controversies  exist  among  those  who  all  alike  profess  to  be 
Calvinists !  How  little  unanimity  exists  upon  the  doctrine 
among  those  who  all  alike  repel  the  charge  of  Arminianism ! 
One  portion  or  school  teach  that  there  is  a  corrupt  nature  in 
man,  but  deny  that  it  is  really  and  strictly  sinful.  Another 
portion  or  school  teach  that  there  is  a  nature  in  man  to  which 
the  epithet  sinful  is  properly  applied,  who  yet,  when  pressed 
with  the  inquiry,  Is  it  crime ,  and  deserving  the  wrath  of  God  ? 

shrink  from  the  right  answer  and  return  an  uncertain  sound, 

6 


Punishment. 


143 


of  which  the  substance  is  that  its  contrariety  to  law,  and  not  its 
voluntariness,  is  the  essence  of  sin.  Again,  there  are  those  who 
are  prepared  to  fall  back  on  the  ground  of  the  elder  Calvinists, 
up  to  a  certain  point,  but  who  resolve  the  whole  matter,  when 
pressed  by  their  opponents,  into  the  arbitrary  will  and  sov¬ 
ereignty  of  God,  and  deprecate  all  attempts  to  construct  the 
doctrine  on  grounds  of  reason  and  philosophy.  And,  finally, 
there  are  some  who  are  inclined  not  only  to  the  doctrinal  state¬ 
ments  of  Augustine  and  Owen  and  the  elder  Edwards,  but  also 
to  their  method  of  establishing  and  defending  it,  by  means  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  real  oneness  of  Adam  and  his  posterity  in 
the  fall  of  the  human  soul”  * 

We  shall  find  in  the  progress  of  the  discussion  that  this  is  a 
very  gentle  putting  of  the  disagreements  existing. 

The  first  method  of  explanation  and  defense  we  notice  as  the 
most  radical  is  that  which  is  intimated  in  the  citation  just  made, 
“the  doctrine  of  the  real  oneness  of  Adam  and  his  posterity;  ” 
more  commonly  put  as  the  real  presence  of  the  posterity  in  the 
Adam  when  he  committed  the  sin.  This,  Dr.  Shedd  asserts,  was 
the  doctrine  of  the  elder  Calvinists — of  Augustine,  of  Calvin,  of 
Owen,  of  Edwards,  and  of  all  the  masters  of  this  faith.  With 
him  agree  Baird,  Landis,  and  others. 

Dr.  Hodge  positively  denies  this,  and  asserts  that  not  one  of 
them  ever  believed  any  such  doctrine.  Those  interested  to 
look  into  the  dispute  may  do  so  by  referring  to  Shedd,  in  his 
treatise,  “Sin  a  Nature,  and  that  Nature  Guilt;”  and  Hodge, 
in  his  examination  of  the  essay  in  his  Princeton  Essays. 

Among  those  who  hold  to  the  presence  of  the  race  with 
Adam  in  the  original  sin,  and  hence  their  common  guilt,  there 
is  noticeable  this  difference:  Some  seem  to  hold  that  all  human 
souls  were  severally  present  in  him,  and  as  separate  souls  joint 
in  the  act,  concurring  and  consenting.  This  view  has  not 

*  Dogmatic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  223. 


144 


Studies  in  Theology. 


found  favor,  and  needs  no  further  notice.  It  has  not  the 
merit  of  having  received  the  support  of  a  single  respectable 
writer. 

The  common  view  is,  rather,  that  we  were  present  in  the 
Adam  impersonally,  but  really  and  substantially ;  so  that,  being 
one  with  him,  his  act  is  our  act.  This,  Dr.  Shedd  alleges,  was 
the  view  of  Augustine.  The  passages  which  seem  most  clearly 
to  convict  him  are  excerpta  from  his  letter  to  Jerome:  “Teach 
me,  therefore,”  he  says  to  this  eminent  prelate,  “I  entreat  you, 
what  I  shall  teach,  teach  what  I  shall  hold,  and  tell  me,  if  souls 
are  created  one  by  one  for  those  who  are  born,  when  do  they 
sin  in  the  little  ones  so  that  they  need  remission  of  sins  in 
baptism  as  sinning  in  Adam,  from  whom  the  sinful  body  is 
propagated?  Or,  if  they  do  not  sin,  by  what  justice  of  the 
Creator  are  they  so  held  responsible  for  the  sin  of  another, 
when  they  are  introduced  into  bodies  propagated  from  him, 
that  they  are  condemned,  if  the  Church  does  not  relieve  them 
by  baptism,  although  they  have  no  power  to  decide  whether 
they  shall  be  baptized  or  not  ?  How  can  so  many  thousands 
of  souls,  which  leave  bodies  of  unbaptized  infants,  be  with  any 
equity  condemned — introduced  into  these  bodies  for  no  pre¬ 
vious  sin  of  their  own,  but  by  the  mere  will  of  him  who  created 
them  to  animate  these  bodies,  and  foreknew  that  each  of  them, 
for  no  fault  of  his  own,  would  die  unbaptized  ?  Since,  then,  we 
cannot  say  that  God  either  makes  souls  sinful  by  compulsion 
or  punishes  them  when  innocent,  and  yet  are  obliged  to  confess 
that  the  souls  of  the  little  ones  are  condemned  if  they  die 
unbaptized,  I  beseech  you  tell  me  how  can  this  opinion  be  de¬ 
fended,  by  which  it  is  believed  that  souls  are  not  all  derived 
from  that  one  first  man,  but  are  newly  created  for  each  particu¬ 
lar  body,  as  was  his  for  his  body.”  * 

“For  we  were  all  in  that  one  man  who  fell  into  sin  through 

*Ep.  166,  Ad  Hieronymum. 


G 


Punishment. 


145 


the  woman,  who  was  made  of  him  before  the  sin  when  he, 
one,  corrupted  all.  The  form  in  which  we  as  individuals  live 
was  not  yet  created  and  distributed  to  us  severally,  but  the 
seminal  nature  was  created  from  whence  we  are  propagated; 
which  nature  itself  being  by  sin  vitiated,  bound  in  the  chains 
of  death,  and  justly  condemned,  man  was  begotten  of  man  in 
no  different  estate."* 

Odo,  or  Oudardus,  Archbishop  of  Cambray,  thus  states  his 
own  as  Augustine’s  view:  “Two  hinds  of  sin  are  spoken  of, 
that  of  nature,  and  personal  sin.  The  sin  of  nature  is  that  with 
which  we  are  born,  and  which  we  derive  from  Adam,  in  whom 
we  all  sinned.  For  my  mind  was  in  him  as  a  part  of  the  whole 
species,  but  not  as  a  person ;  not  in  my  individual  nature,  but 
in  the  common  nature.  For  the  common  nature  of  all  human 
minds  in  Adam  was  involved  in  sin.  And  thus  every  human 
mind  is  blamable  with  respect  to  its  nature,  although  not  with 
respect  to  its  person.  Thus  the  sin  by  which  we  sinned  in 
Adam  is  to  me  a  sin  of  nature — in  Adam  a  personal  sin.  In 
Adam  it  was  more  criminal ;  in  me  less  so ;  for  I,  who  am,  did 
not  sin  in  him,  but  that  which  I  am.  I  did  not  sin  in  him,  but 
this  essence  which  I  am.  I  sinned  as  the  genus  man,  not  as  the 
individual  Odo.  I  sinned  as  a  substance,  not  as  a  person;  and 
because  my  substance  does  not  exist  but  in  a  person  the  sin  of 
my  substance  is  the  sin  of  one  who  is  a  person,  but  not  a 
personal  sin.  For  a  personal  sin  is  one  which  I,  who  am,  com¬ 
mit,  but  this  substance  which  I  am  does  not  commit — a  sin 
in  which  I  sin  as  Odo,  and  not  as  the  genus  man ;  in  which  I 
sin  as  a  person,  and  not  as  a  nature ;  but,  because  there  is  no 
person  without  a  nature,  the  sin  of  a  person  is  also  the  sin  of  a 
nature,  but  not  a  natural  sin.”f 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  Professor  Shedd,  in  his  able  essay  on 

*  Augustine,  De  Civitate  Dei,  lib.  13,  14. 

f  E.  Beecher,  Conflict  of  Ages,  pp.  320,  321. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


“  Original  Sin.”  He  contends,  also,  that  it  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  Westminster  Assembly,  and  of  Augustine,  Calvin,  Owen, 
and  Edwards,  from  whom  he  adduces  copious  extracts  in  sup¬ 
port  of  his  position. 

Having  quoted  from  the  Assembly’s  Catechism,  he  proceeds : 

“How,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  these  men  were  making 
distinct  and  scientific  statements,  and  their  language,  conse¬ 
quently,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  merely  metaphorical.  It 
must,  therefore,  be  understood  in  the  same  way  that  scientific 
language  is  always  to  be  understood — taken  in  its  literal  mean¬ 
ing,  unless  a  palpable  contradiction  or  absurdity  is  involved  in 
so  doing.  In  the  doctrinal  and  scientific  statement,  then,  it  is 
affirmed  that  all  men  sinned  in  Adam,  and  fell  with  Adam,  in 
his  first  transgression.  This  implies  and  teaches  that  all  men 
were,  in  some  sense,  coexistent  in  Adam ;  otherwise  they 
could  not  have  sinned  in  him.  It  teaches  that  all  men  were  in 
some  sense  coagent  in  Adam ;  otherwise  they  could  not  have 
fallen  with  him.  The  mode  of  this  coexistence  and  coagency 
of  the  whole  human  race  in  the  first  man,  they  do  not,  it  is  true, 
attempt  to  set  forth ;  but  their  language  distinctly  implies  that 
they  believe  there  was  such  a  coexistence  and  coagency, 
whether  it  could  be  explained  or  not.  They  regarded  Adam 
not  merely  as  an  individual,  but  as  a  common  person,  and 
having  a  generic  as  well  as  individual  character.  They  taught 
that  he  was  substantially  the  race  of  mankind,  and  that  his 
whole  posterity  existed  in  him.  Consequently,  whatever  be¬ 
fell  Adam  befell  the  race.  In  Adam’s  fall  the  race  fell.  And 
what  is  to  be  particularly  noted  is  that  they  did  not  regard  the 
fall  of  Adam,  considered  as  an  individual,  any  more  guilty 
than  the  fall  of  each  and  every  one  of  his  posterity,  or  that 
original  sin  was  any  the  less  guilt  in  his  posterity  than  it  was  in 
him.  So  far  as  responsibility  was  concerned  Adam  and  his  pos¬ 
terity  were  all  alike  guilty  of  apostasy.  They  were  all  involved 


Punishment. 


147 


in  a  common  condemnation,  because  they  were  all  alike  con¬ 
cerned  in  the  fall.  The  race  fell  in  Adam,  and  consequently 
each  individual  of  the  race  was  in  some  mysterious  yet  real 
manner  existent  in  this  common  parent  of  all. 

“  This  phraseology  is  not  to  be  understood  as  implying  that 
the  individual  is  in  the  germ  as  a  distinct  individual.  Adam,  as 
the  generic  man,  was  not  a  mere  receptacle  containing  millions 
of  separate  individuals.  The  germ  is  not  an  aggregation,  but  a 
single,  simple  essence.  As  such  it  is  not  yet  characterized  by  in¬ 
dividuality.  It,  however,  becomes  varied  and  manifold,  by  being 
individualized  in  its  propagation,  or  development  into  a  series.  The 
individual,  consequently  (with  the  exception  of  the  first  pair,  who 
are  immediately  created,  and  are  both  individual  and  generic),  is 
always  the  result  of  propagation,  and  not  of  creation.  In  the 
instance  of  man  the  creation  proper  is  the  origination  of  the 
generic  species,  which  species  is  individualized  in  its  propaga¬ 
tion  under  the  preserving  and  providential  (but  noncreating) 
agency  of  the  Creator.  The  individual,  as  such ,  is  consequently 
only  a  subsequent  modus  extendi;  the  first  and  antecedent  mode 
being  the  generic  humanity,  of  which  this  subsequent  serial 
mode  is  only  another  aspect  or  manifestation.  Had  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  series  of  human  generations  existed  in  their  proper 
individuality  in  the  progenitor  there  would  have  been  no  need 
of  the  subsequent  process  of  individualization  or  propagation. 
The  doctrine  of  traducianism  is  unquestionably  more  accord¬ 
ant  with  that  of  original  sin  than  that  of  creationism,  and  the 
only  reason  why  Augustine,  and  others  after  him,  hesitated 
with  regard  to  its  formal  adoption  was  its  supposed  incompati¬ 
bility  with  the  doctrine  of  the  soul’s  immateriality  and  immor¬ 
tality.  If,  however,  the  distinction  between  creation  and  de¬ 
velopment  be  clearly  conceived  and  rigorously  observed,  it  will 
be  seen  that  there  is  no  danger  of  materialism  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  soul’s  propagation.  For  development  cannot  change  the 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


essence  of  that  which  is  being  developed.  It  may  unfold  that, 
and  only  that,  which  is  given  in  creation.  Now,  granting  the 
creation  of  the  generic  man  in  his  totality  of  soul  and  body ,  it  is 
plain  that  his  mere  individualization  by  propagation  must  leave 
both  his  physical  and  spiritual  nature  as  it  found  them,  so  far 
as  this  distinction  between  mind  and  matter  is  concerned.  For 
matter  cannot  be  converted  into  mind  by  mere  expansion,  and 
neither  can  mind  be  changed  into  matter  by  it.  Both  parts  of 
man  will,  therefore,  preserve  their  original  created  qualities 
and  characteristics  in  this  process  of  propagation,  or  individual¬ 
izing  of  the  generic,  which  is  conducted,  moreover,  beneath  the 
preserving  and  providential  agency  of  the  Creator.  That  which 
is  flesh  will  be  propagated  as  flesh ,  and  that  which  is  spirit  as 
spirit ,  and  this  because  mere  propagation  or  development  can¬ 
not  change  the  kind  of  essence.  If,  therefore,  it  is  conceded  that 
the  creation  of  man  was  complete,  involving  the  origination 
from  nonentity  of  the  entire  humanity  as  a  synthesis  of  matter 
and  mind,  flesh  and  spirit,  cannot  change  the  essence  upon 
either  side  of  the  complex  being,  but  can  only  individualize  it. 

“It  is  on  this  ground  that  they  taught  that  original  sin  is 
real  sin,  is  guilt  The  sinful  nature  they  held  could  be  properly 
charged  upon  every  child  of  Adam  as  a  nature  for  which  he, 
and  not  the  Creator,  was  responsible,  and  which  rendered  him 
obnoxious  to  the  eternal  displeasure  of  God,  even  though,  as 
in  the  case  of  infants  dying  before  the  dawn  of  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  this  nature  should  never  have  manifested  itself  in  con¬ 
scious  transgression.  Every  child  of  Adam  fell  from  God  in 
Adam,  and  together  with  Adam,  and  therefore  is  justly  charge¬ 
able  with  all  that  Adam  is  justly  chargeable  with,  and  precisely 
on  the  same  ground,  namely,  on  the  ground  that  his  fall  was 
not  necessitated,  but  self-determined.  For  the  will  of  Adam 
was  not  the  will  of  a  single  isolated  individual  merely ;  it  was 

also,  and  besides  this,  the  will  of  the  human  species — the 
6 


Punishment. 


149 


human  will  generically.  If  he  fell  freely,  so  did  his  posterity, 
yet  not  one  after  another  and  each  for  himself,  as  the  series  of 
individuals  in  which  the  one  seminal  human  nature  manifested 
itself  were  born  into  the  world,  but  all  together,  and  all  at  once, 
in  that  first  transgression,  which  stands  a  most  awful  and  preg¬ 
nant  event  at  the  beginning  of  human  history.” 

That  we  do  not  misinterpret  this  author  in  supposing  him  to 
hold  that  the  nature  which  was  present  in  Adam  was  a  real  objec¬ 
tive  thing,  as  distinct  from  his  person,  is  conclusive  from  a  consul¬ 
tation  of  chapter  iv,  in  which,  among  other  things,  he  treats 
of  species,  and  fully  asserts  the  doctrine  of  realism.  Treating 
of  the  word  nature,  he  says  :  “The  word  is  not  expressive  of  a 
mere  abstraction,  but  designates  an  actual  thing,  an  objective 
realitv.  Thus  the  human  nature  consists  of  the  whole  sum  of 
forces  which,  original  in  Adam,  are  perpetuated  and  flow  in 
generation  to  his  seed.  And  our  oneness  of  nature  does  not 
express  the  fact  merely  that  we  and  Adam  are  alike,  but  that 
we  are  thus  alike  because  the  forces  that  are  in  us,  and  make 
us  what  we  are,  were  in  him,  and  are  numerically  the  same 
which  in  him  constituted  his  nature  and  gave  him  his  like¬ 
ness.”  * 

“By  birth  we  acquire  a  distinct  and  separate  personality, 
having  an  identity  of  its  own,  of  the  same  grade  and  degree  as 
was  that  of  Adam's  person.  But  with  this  distinct  personality 
there  is  associated  a  community  in  Adam’s  moral  nature,  by 
virtue  of  the  continuity  of  forces  flowing  from  him  to  us,  em¬ 
bracing  us  in  an  identity  with  his  nature,  and  involving  our 
communion  in  his  apostasy  from  God.”f 

In  the  work  of  Dr.  Baird,  The  Elohim  Revealed ,  the  doctrine 
is  most  explicitly  stated  and  elaborately  argued.  “  The  nature 
of  the  entire  race  was  created  originally  in  Adam,  and  is  propa¬ 
gated  from  him  by  generation,  and  so  descends  to  all  his  seed. 

*  Dogmatic  Theology,  vol.  ii,  p.  150.  f  Ibid.,  p.  496. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


Hence  arise  two  distinct  forms  of  responsibility :  tbe  nature 
being  placed  under  a  creative  obligation  of  conformity  to  tbe 
holiness  of  Gods  nature,  and  each  several  person  being  in  a 
similar  manner  held  under  obligation  of  personal  conformity  of 
affections,  thoughts,  words,  and  actions,  to  the  holy  require¬ 
ments  of  God’s  law.  The  apostasy  of  this  nature  was  the  im¬ 
mediate  efficient  cause  in  Adam  of  the  act  of  disobedience,  the 
plucking  of  the  forbidden  fruit.  Thus  there  attached  to  him 
the  double  crime  of  apostasy  of  his  nature  and  of  personal  diso¬ 
bedience.  The  guilt  thus  incurred  attached  not  only  to  Adam's 
person,  but  to  the  nature  which,  in  his  person,  caused  the  act  of 
transgression.  Thus,  as  the  nature  flows  to  all  the  posterity  of 
Adam,  it  comes  bearing  the  burden  of  that  initial  crime,  and 
characterized  by  the  depravity  which  was  embraced  therein."* 

“We  are  not  held  accountable  for  Adam’s  breach  of  the 
covenant,  in  consequence  of  the  transgression  respecting  the 
tree ;  but  because  of  the  inscription  of  the  covenant  in  Adam’s 
nature,  and  our  inbeing  in  him  in  whose  nature  it  was 
inscribed.”  f 

u  He  and  they  are  one  by  virtue  of  a  community  in  a  nature 
which,  originally  one,  in  Adam,  is  communicated  to  his  pos¬ 
terity  by  generation,  and  is  possessed  by  them,  not,  as  in  the 
other  case,  in  common  and  undivided,  but  distributively  and 
in  severalty.”:]: 

“  The  offense  is  ours  immediately,  and  not  by  virtue  of  any 
divine  agency  investing  us  with  it.  As  the  apostle  has  already 
shown  that,  when  Adam  sinned,  all  his  seed  were  in  him,  and 
so  sinned  in  the  very  act  with  him.  ...  It  is  only  because 
truly  and  immediately  ours  that  a  God  of  infinite  truth  and 
justice  charges  it  to  us.”  § 

We  cannot  be  doing  an  injustice  to  these  several  authors  in 
representing  them  as  holding  the  real  unity  and  identity  of 

P.248.  t  P.811.  t  P.322.  §  P.422. 

6 


Punishment. 


151 


Aclam  and  his  posterity  as  to  nature — meaning  thereby  some¬ 
thing  which  constituted  objective  and  numerical  unity — and 
that  because  of  this  presence  of  us  with  Adam  in  the  transgres¬ 
sion,  and  partaking  of  it,  we  became  guilty  in  the  same  way  as 
he  did. 

It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  understand  precisely  what  is 
meant  by  the  statement  of  our  real  presence  with  Adam.  It 
does  not  mean  that  our  bodies  and  souls  were  present  in  him 
as  they  are  now  existing  in  us.  And  yet  something  that  is  now 
of  us,  and  the  substratum  of  our  personality,  was  there — that 
something  which  makes  us  men — called  human  nature.  The 
idea  would  seem  to  be  that  at  first  there  was  created  a  great 
mass  of  human  nature  out  of  which  all  human  beings  were 
afterward  to  be  made,  as  many  garments  are  made  out  of  one 
web  of  cloth,  and  that  this  mass  was  invested  in  Adam ;  that 
when  an  individual  man  is  propagated  from  Adam  he  has  trans¬ 
ferred  to  him  a  molecule  of  the  original  mass,  or  so  many 
molecules  as  he  is  to  transmit  to  future  men  that  are  to  spring 
from  him,  and  thus  the  great  mass  originally  created  is  to  be 
parceled  out  and  divided  up  until  each  one  of  the  posterity 
shall  have  received  his  part ;  that  while  in  Adam  this  entire 
mass  of  human  nature,  the  as  yet  impersonal  aggregate  of  the 
stuff  future  individual  personalities  were  to  be  made  of,  apos¬ 
tatized  and  became  attaint  and  guilty— -the  whole  and  every 
part  of  it — so  that  each  molecule  as  it  descends  carries  the 
taint  and  guilt  of  that  first  apostasy  to  the  individual  person¬ 
alities  of  which  the  molecule  becomes  the  center,  nucleus,  or 
basis. 

Dr.  Hodge  so  interprets  it:  “According  to  this  view,  hu¬ 
manity  is  one  substance,  in  which  inhere  certain  forces.  This 
substance  was  originally  in  Adam,  and  has  been  by  propa¬ 
gation  communicated  to  all  his  descendants,  so  that  the  sub¬ 
stance,  with  its  forces,  which  constitutes  them  what  they  are,  is 

6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


numerically  the  same  as  that  which  was  in  him  and  made  him 
what  he  was. 

“  If  there  be  any  other  meaning  it  is  so  transcendental  that 
we  acknowledge  onr  inability  to  perceive  it.”* 

We  do  not  say  that  this  is  Calvinism.  Dr.  Shedd  declares  it 
is,  and  Dr.  Baird,  and  Dr.  Landis,  and  Dr.  Breckenridge,  and 
they  quote  from  all  the  leading  authors  from  Augustine  down 
to  show  that  such  was  their  doctrine,  and  that  it  is  true  and 
sound  doctrine,  f  Dr.  Hodge  declares  it  a  perversion  of  all  the 
authorities,  and  quotes  profusely  to  show  itf 

We  cannot  doubt  that  both  are  right.  The  authors,  under 
the  embarrassments  of  their  circumstances  in  attempting  to 
defend  an  indefensible  point,  have  doubtless  taken  contradic¬ 
tory  and  antagonistic  positions.  The  authorities  *  are  pretty 
evenly  balanced,  and  the  same  masters  are  about  half  the  time 
on  one  side  and  half  the  time  on  the  other. 

The  question  with  us,  however,  is  not  whether  the  doctrine 
above  declared  is  Calvinism,  but,  Is  it  true  ?  The  men  whose 
names  are  attached  and  the  authorities  cited  are  high  authori¬ 
ties.  They  at  least  undertake  to  sustain  the  Calvinistic  posi¬ 
tion  that  all  Adam’s  posterity  are  guilty  of  Adam’s  sin,  or 
guilty  by  that  one  sin  of  Adam.  Their  explanation  is  that 
the  posterity  were  in  the  Adam,  coexisting  and  coacting; 
that,  therefore,  they  are  guilty;  and  they  assert  that  in  no 
other  way  could  they  be  guilty.  They  are  extremely  positive 
upon  this  point. 

Dr.  Hodge  and  the  Princeton  school  at  his  back  assert  the 
doctrine  of  the  guilt  of  the  race,  but  pronounce  the  reason 
assigned  by  these  authors  to  be  wholly  without  foundation  and 

*  Biblical  Repertory,  April,  1861. 

fSee  Danville  Review,  1861-62;  Shedd’s  Essays;  Baird’s  Elohim  Revealed ; 
Beecher’s  Conflict  of  Ages. 

%  See  his  essays,  in  volume  of  Princeton  Essays ,  on  Imputation  and  Original  Sin  ; 
and  still  later  articles  in  the  Princeton  Review. 


Punishment. 


153 


utterly  false — the  grossest  kind  of  error  ;  and  in  this  we  think 
they  are  right  His  exceptions  are  taken  on  several  grounds, 
and  most  earnestly  on  the  ground  that  it  deserts  and  surrenders 
fundamental  principles  of  the  Calvinistic  system  ;  but — in  every 
such  case — because  it  is  untrue.  I  quote  from  his  review  of  Dr. 
Baird's  book  in  the  Princeton  Review ,  April,  1860.  He  is  espe¬ 
cially  severe  on  Dr.  Baird.  On  page  365  he  says :  “  If  there 
is  any  meaning  in  all  this  we  confess  ourselves  too  blind  to  see 
it.  We  have  no  idea  what  is  meant  by  1  the  law  being  addressed 
to  the  very  substance  of  the  soul  ’  [the  reply  here  is  to  the  pre¬ 
posterous  idea  of  Dr.  Baird,  about  page  260  of  his  book,  on  the 
subject  of  a  nature  sinning,  a  doctrine  in  the  form  in  which  he 
expressed  it  I  think  never  conceived  by  another  mind ;  but  his 
remarks  are  of  wide  application,  hence  the  extended  quotation], 
or  by  saying  conformity  of  substance  to  the  image  of  God  is 
holiness,  and  the  reverse  sin.” 

11  It  is,”  Dr.  Hodge  goes  on  to  say,  11  as  unintelligible  to  us  as 
speaking  of  the  moral  character  of  a  tree,  or  the  correct  de¬ 
portment  of  a  house.  It  has  often  happened  to  us  in  reading 
German  metaphysics  not  to  comprehend  at  all  the  meaning  of 
the  author;  but  we  have  always  had  the  conviction  that  he 
had  a  meaning.  We  do  not  feel  thus  on  the  present  occasion. 
The  distinction  which  the  author  attempts  to  draw  between 
sinful  acts  of  nature  and  personal  sins  is  a  distinction  which 
means  nothing,  and  on  this  nothing  his  whole  theory  is 
founded.  There  are  actions,  of  course,  of  very  different  kinds 
in  a  creature  composed  of  soul  and  body ;  some  of  these  may 
properly  enough  be  called  natural,  and  others  personal.  But 
this  does  not  apply  to  moral  acts,  whether  good  or  evil.  .  .  . 
There  can,  indeed,  from  the  very  idea  of  sin,  be  no  actual  sin 
which  is  not  personal,  because  that  which  acts  rationally  and 
by  self-determination,  two  elements  essential  to  actual  sin,  is  a 

person.  Actual  sin  can  no  more  be  predicated  of  a  nature  as 

11  6 


154: 


Studies  in  Theology. 


distinguished  from  a  person  than  of  a  house.”  The  criticism  is 
severe,  but  just.  We  shall  find  that  his  criticisms  are  no  less 
destructive  of  the  common  ground  of  a  real  unity  of  the  race 
in  Adam,  and  their  coaction  in  his  sin — the  ground  so  ably 
defended  and  constantly  assumed  by  Dr.  Shedd  and  the  many 
great  names  quoted  by  him.  “  This  supposition,”  he  says, 
“  that  actual  sins  can  be  committed  by  persons  before  they 
are  persons,  that  we  acted  thousands  of  years  before  we  ex¬ 
isted,  is  as  monstrous  a  proposition  as  ever  was  framed.”* 
“  There  is  no  definition  of  a  personal  act  more  precise  and 
generally  adopted  than  an  ‘  act  of  voluntary  self-determina¬ 
tion.’  Such  was  apostasy  in  Adam,  and  if  we  performed  that 
act,  then  we  were  in  him,  not  by  community  of  nature  merely, 
but  personally.  Apostasy  being  an  act  of  self-determination, 
it  can  be  predicated  only  of  persons ;  and  if  the  apostasy  of 
Adam  can  be  predicated  of  us,  then  we  existed  thousands  of 
years  before  we  existed  at  all.  If  any  says  he  believes  this, 
then,  as  we  think,  he  deceives  himself,  and  does  not  under¬ 
stand  what  he  says.”  How  refreshingly  the  doctor  utters 
himself  when  he  happens  to  have  truth  on  his  side!  “It  is 
assumed  that  innate,  hereditary  depravity  cannot  have  the 
nature  of  sin  in  it  unless  it  be  self-originated  [the  very  posi¬ 
tion  of  Dr.  Shedd]  ;  hence  some  assume  that  we  existed  in  a 
former  state,  when,  by  an  act  of  self-determination,  we  de¬ 
praved  our  own  nature.  Others  assume  that  humanity  is  a 
person,  or  that  personality  can  be  predicated  of  human  nature 
as  a  generic  life,  and  that  individuals  are  the  forms  in  which  its 
comprehensive  personality  is  revealed ;  a  conception  as  incon¬ 
gruous  as  the  hundred-headed  idol  of  the  Hindus.” 

In  the  following  trenchant  manner  he  knocks  on  the  head  the 
whole  theory  of  the  unity  of  the  race  in  Adam : 

“  The  principle  here  involved  is  asserted  to  be  true  in  its 

*  P.  356. 


6 


Punishment. 


155 


application  to  all  the  genera  and  species  of  plants  and  animals. 
The  lion  of  to-day  is  the  same  numerical  substance  with  the  lion 
first  created ;  the  oak  of  to-day  is  the  same  numerically  as  the 
original  oak  in  Eden.  What  is  meant  by  this  ?  We  take  up  an 
acorn  in  the  forest — in  what  sense  is  it  identical  with  the  first 
created  oak?  Not  in  the  matter  of  which  it  is  composed,  for 
that  is  derived  from  the  earth  and  the  atmosphere ;  not  in  its 
chemical  properties,  for  they  inhere  in  the  matter,  or  result 
from  its  combinations.  These  properties  are  doubtless  the  same 
in  kind  with  those  belonging  to  the  first  acorn,  but  they  are 
not  numerically  the  same.  .  .  .  The  realistic  hypothesis  of 

the  objective  reality  of  genera  and  species  is  not  only  purely 
gratuitous,  but  it  overlooks  the  continued  presence  and  agency 
of  God  in  nature.  The  development  of  a  plant  and  the  growth 
of  an  animal  body  are  not  to  be  referred  to  blind  forces  inher¬ 
ent  in  matter,  or  in  any  substance,  material  or  immaterial,  but  to 
the  omnipresent  Spirit  of  God.” 

Thus  the  theologians  of  Princeton  repudiate  this  theory 
entirely  as  baseless,  repugnant  to  sound  philosophy,  and  as 
furnishing  no  explanation  of  the  doctrine  of  original  sin.  The 
fact  which  serves  as  its  foundation  is  no  fact.  Realism,  which 
held  to  the  objective  reality  of  what  was  indicated  by  universal 
terms,  is  an  exploded  myth  of  the  mediaeval  ages;  universal 
terms,  not  things  which  have  an  objective  existence,  but  simply 
subjective  conceptions  of  the  mind  employing  them.  There  is 
a  conceptual,  or  ideal,  human  nature  abstract  of  real  man,  and 
it  is  not  an  objective  thing,  but  only  an  idea,  having  no  other 
existence  except  the  unsubstantial  form  of  a  subjective  concep¬ 
tion.  Adam’s  human  nature  was  a  subjective  idea  of  the 
divine  mind  until  it  became  a  reality  in  the  real  Adam.  The 
human  nature  of  every  other  man,  likewise,  had  no  existence 
until  it  existed  with  and  in  him.  Millions  of  similar  men, 
with  a  similar  nature,  existed  before  him,  but  his  own  nature 


156 


Studies  ix  Theology. 


was  not  until  he,  by  existing,  caused  it  to  exist,  an  ideal,  and  not 
a  real,  thing.  He  was  in  Adam  in  this  sense  only  as  the  effect  is 
in  the  cause  ;  as  there  was  in  Adam  the  power  to  produce  him, 
aot  as  something  already  existing ;  as  the  ocean  steamer  is  in 
the  man  who  makes  it.  So  that  to  charge  human  nature, 
separate  from  personality,  with  being  tainted  and  guilty  is  the 
same  as  saying  that  something  is  tainted  and  guilty  which  has 
no  being  at  all  in  reality,  but  only  in  imagination ;  as  pure  a 
nothing  as  a  mountain  of  gold  or  a  flying  man — a  myth ! 

But  were  the  fact  as  alleged,  that  is,  had  there  been  co¬ 
existence  of  substance,  it  would  add  nothing  to  that  for  which 
it  is  introduced.  It  is  relied  on  to  explain  the  doctrine  of  orig¬ 
inal  sin;  that  is,  to  show  how  in  Adam  we  all  sinned  and 
became  justly  deserving  of  punishment.  The  difficulty*  to  be 
overcome  is  that  we  had  no  participation  whatever  in  Adam's 
sin,  and  cannot  have  a  participation  in  his  guilt  and  punish¬ 
ment;  that  we  had  no  more  connection  with  it  than  we  had 
with  the  sin  of  Satan,  and  can,  therefore,  be  no  more  justly 
amenable  in  the  one  case  than  we  could  in  the  other. 

The  ground  of  the  objection  is  tacitly  admitted:  that  to  be¬ 
come  guilty  it  is  requisite  that  we  should  have  some  real  con¬ 
nection  with  that  which  is  the  occasion  of  guilt.  This  enforces 
conviction  with  all  the  authority  of  an  intuition,  as  we  shall  see 
throughout  the  discussion. 

If  by  being  present  with  Adam  the  propounder  meant  that 
each  of  the  human  race  was  personally  and  consciously  pres¬ 
ent,  giving  his  free  consent  to  the  act  of  transgression,  acting  as 
a  will  and  intelligently,  then  it  would  serve  the  purpose  for 
which  it  is  introduced ;  that  is,  it  would  prove  the  act  of  trans¬ 
gression  to  be  the  individual  act  of  each  and  the  common  act  of 
all.  One  hand  plucked  the  fruit,  but  all  the  souls  said  Amen  ! 
"Doubtless,  in  such  a  case,  the  sin,  guilt,  and  punishment  would 
be  common  and  individual ;  the  moral  act — which  is  the  sin, 


Punishment. 


157 


lying  back  of  the  external  act,  which  was  performed  by  Adam 
alone — being  the  common  act  of  all  and  the  individual  act  of 
each. 

But  that  is  not  what  the  theorist  means ;  indeed,  it  is  what 
he  expressly  denies.  TYe  were  present,  but  not  in  that  man¬ 
ner.  We  were  present  as  parts  of  one  substance,  but  not  as 
intelligences  and  wills ;  we  were  impersonally  present ;  the  stuff 
out  of  which  we  were  afterward  to  be  manufactured  into  per¬ 
sons  was  present  There  was  but  one  will  present.  That  was 
Adam's,  but  that  will  wrought  for  all  the  substance ;  and 
through  it  the  substance  all  became  guilty !  Or,  what  is  still 
more  occult,  the  substance  itself  acted  !  The  author  who  an¬ 
nounces  the  theory  most  fully  holds  that  human  nature  apos¬ 
tatized  before  Adam  personally  sinned,  and  that  this  apostasy, 
which  was  the  apostasy  of  all,  led  to  Adam’s  sin,  as  it  leads  to 
our  sin ;  and  that,  indeed,  no  personal  sin  ever  could  have 
occurred  if  the  nature  had  not  first  apostatized. 

u The  sin  was  the  apostasy  of  man’s  nature  from  God;  apos¬ 
tasy  by  the  force  of  which  Adam  was  impelled  into  the  act  of 
transgression  as  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  state  of  heart 
constituted  by  the  apostasy.”  * 

The  principle  that  community  in  a  propagated  nature  con¬ 
stitutes  such  a  unity  or  oneness  as  immediately  involves  the 
possessors  in  all  the  relations,  moral  and  legal,  of  that  nature  in 
the  progenitor  whence  it  springs,  which  underlies  this  whole 
theory,  is  thus  dispatched  by  Dr.  Hodge :  u  This  is  a  principle 
of  wide  application.  It  cannot  be  taken  up  and  laid  aside  at 
pleasure.  If  community  of  nature  involves  community  in  guilt, 
and  pollution  for  acts  of  nature,  then  it  must  be  for  all  the  acts 
of  that  nature.  It  is  purely  arbitrary  and  contradictory  to  con¬ 
fine  it  to  one  of  these  acts  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  If  in 
virtue  of  community  of  nature  we  are  agents  in  Adam’s  first 

*P.  97. 


6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


sin  of  nature,  and  morally  chargeable  with  its  criminality,  then 
we  are  morally  chargeable  with  all  his  moral  acts.  If  the  ground 
of  imputation  of  his  guilt  is  the  covenant  then  it  is  limited  to 
his  first  sin,  but  if  that  ground  be  community  of  nature  it  must 
extend  to  all  his  sins.  .  .  .  Community  of  nature  makes  us 
morally  responsible  for  all  the  moral  acts  of  our  progenitor. 
But  what  is  to  limit  the  application  of  the  principle  to  our  orig¬ 
inal  progenitor  ?  What  is  the  specific  difference  between  our 
natural  relation  to  Adam  and  our  natural  relation  to  Noah  ? 
Again,  what  difference  as  to  community  of  nature  is  there  be¬ 
tween  our  relation  to  Adam  and  the  relation  of  the  Hebrews  to 
Abraham?  If  we,  on  the  ground  of  that  community,  are 
responsible  for  all  Adam’s  moral  acts,  why  are  not  the  Hebrews 
responsible  for  all  the  acts  of  Abraham  ?  Nay,  why  are  not  we 
responsible  for  the  acts  of  our  immediate  progenitors,  and  of  all 
our  progenitors  back  to  Adam  ?  What  is  to  hinder  our  being 
morally  chargeable  with  every  act  ever  committed  by  all  our 
ancestors?  ” 

We  quote  from  the  reviewer  precisely  the  objection  we  should 
put  ourselves.  It  is  unquestionably  well  taken,  and  is  by  no 
means  put  in  the  most  objectionable  form  of  which  it  is  capable. 

Were  coexistence  of  the  entire  race  in  Adam,  as  mere  sub¬ 
stance,  essence  or  matter,  if  the  thing  be  conceivable,  allowed, 
it  would  be  of  no  avail  to  establish  guilt ;  and  if  it  were  further 
allowed  that  by  the  sinful  act  of  the  Adam  the  entire  mass  was 
in  some  mysterious  manner  addled,  corrupted,  polluted,  or 
whatsoever  you  may  call  it,  it  would  still  be  of  no  avail  to  con¬ 
vict  the  after  personalities,  invested  with  it  by  propagation,  of 
guilt  Until  it  is  made  out  that  sin  is  a  physical  quality  the 
only  possible  ground  of  guilt  must  be  in  something  else  than  a 
nature  or  essence.  No  sane  writer  has  ever  attempted  to  find 
it  in  the  absence  of  will,  or  resident  anywhere  else  but  in  will. 

Allow,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  the  coexistence  of  the 


Punishment. 


159 


very  essence  of  each  human  soul  in  and  with  Adam,  and  upon 
this  admission  predicate  of  them  the  guilt  of  his  sin.  The 
question  at  once  arises,  Upon  what  ground,  and  of  what,  are 
they  guilty?  Is  it  said,  Of  Adam's  act  of  sin?  But  how 
comes  it  that  Adam’s  act  is  ground  of  guilt  to  them?  Was 
Adam’s  act  their  act  ?  It  is  conceded  that  it  was  not,  since  it 
is  agreed  that  as  persons  they  did  not  exist  and  therefore  could 
not  act.  But  if,  as  appears,  the  matter  of  blame  was  some¬ 
thing  with  which  by  reason  of  nonexistence  they  could  have 
no  connection,  it  must  be  impossible  that  they  should  partici¬ 
pate  in  the  blame.  To  blame  them  is  to  blame  them  for  an 
act  performed  by  another  person,  and  which  transpired  thou¬ 
sands  of  years  before  they  had  a  personal  and  responsible  ex¬ 
istence,  and  the  knowledge  of  which  was  first  brought  to  them 
in  the  form  of  an  indictment.  The  supposition  is  that  of  a  mad¬ 
man;  guilt  could  as  reasonably,  and  on  precisely  the  same 
ground,  be  predicated  of  any  and  all  misfortunes  and  injuries 
which  one  being  receives  from  another  by  virtue  of  coexist¬ 
ence.  It  reverses  all  ideas  of  justice  and  subverts  all  moral 
distinctions.  It  is  an  impossible  conceit  to  a  rational  being 
that  blame  should  attach  to  a  substance,  or  to  a  person,  on  ac¬ 
count  of  a  substance  with  which  his  connection  is  wholly  in¬ 
voluntary.  The  words  may  be  strung  together  in  propositional 
forms,  and  men  under  stress  of  preconceived  theories  may 
imagine  that  they  conceive  a  meaning  to  them,  and  a  truth  in 
them,  but  they  do  violence  to  the  laws  of  thought,  and  when¬ 
ever  presented  to  minds  free  from  disguises  meet  a  prompt  and 
spontaneous  resistance. 

An  examination  of  all  the  writers  who  have  attempted  to 
identify  the  race  with  Adam’s  sin  on  account  of  coexistence 
will  show  that  they  are  constantly  assuming  coaction  as  well, 
and  this  because  they  know  that  coaction  must  be  hypothecated 
in  order  to  guilt. 


s 


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Dr.  Shedd  expressly  admits  that  in  order  to  guilt  there  must 
be  personal  will  action.  “  The  doctrine  of  the  divine  anger  is 
tenable  only  on  the  supposition  that  the  objects  upon  which  it 
expresses  itself  are  really  ill-deserving — are  really  criminal.  It 
becomes  necessary,  therefore,  to  show  that  the  sinful  nature  of 
man,  on  account  of  which  he  becomes  a  child  of  wrath,  and 
obnoxious  to  the  divine  anger,  is  a  guilty  nature.”* 

Following  this  extract  in  his  essay  is  an  elaborate  argument 
to  show  that  the  sinful  nature  is  in  the  will,  and  is  originated 
by  the  will,  and  hence  its  guilt ;  and  that  its  guilt  may  be 
predicated  of  each  man  he  connects  the  action  of  each  man’s 
will  with  its  origination ;  men  are,  therefore,  individually  guilty 
in  the  matter  of  their  sinful  nature  because,  and  only  because, 
they  participated  in  the  act  of  will  which  originated  it.  He 
many  times  affirms  there  can  be  no  other  ground  of  guilt 
More  than  presence  of  a  common  nature  or  substance  is  predi¬ 
cated — common  will  action,  in  its  deepest  and  most  primitive 
form.  Of  the  Westminster  Assembly  he  asserts  this  was  their 
view,  and  scientifically  expressed  in  the  Creed.  “Every  child 
of  Adam  fell  from  God,  in  Adam,  and  together  with  Adam, 
and  therefore  is  justly  chargeable  with  all  that  Adam  is  justly 
chargeable  with,  and  precisely  on  the  same  ground,  namely,  on 
the  ground  that  his  fall  was  not  necessitated,  but  self-determined. 
For  the  will  of  Adam  was  not  the  will  of  a  single,  isolated 
individual  merely ;  it  was  also,  and  besides  this,  the  will  of  the 
human  species — the  human  will  generically.  If  he  fell  freely, 
so  did  his  posterity,  yet  not  one  after  another,  and  each  for 
himself,  as  the  series  of  individuals  in  which  the  one  seminal 
human  nature  manifested  itself  were  bom  into  the  world,  but 
all  together  and  all  at  once,  in  that  first  transgression,  wjiich 
stands  a  most  awful  and  awfully  pregnant  event  in  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  human  history.”  f 
*  P.  237. 


fP.  260. 


Punishment. 


161 


“  The  aim  of  the  Westminster  symbol,  accordingly,  and,  it 
may  be  added,  of  all  the  creeds  on  the  Angustinian  side  of  the 
controversy,  was  to  combine  two  elements,  each  having  truth 
in  it :  to  teach  the  fall  of  the  human  race  as  a  unity,  and  at  the 
same  time  recognize  the  existence,  freedom,  and  guilt  of  the 
individual  in  the  fall.  Accordingly  they  locate  the  individual 
in  Adam,  and  make  him,  in  some  mysterious,  but  real,  manner, 
a  responsible  partaker  in  Adam’s  sin — a  guilty  sharer,  and  in 
some  solid  sense  of  the  word  coagent  in  common  apostasy.”  * 

He  cpiotes  from  Augustine,  Calvin,  Owen,  and  others  to 
show  that  they  held  this  view.  He  concludes  the  discussion 
with  these  words:  “We  know  of  no  other  theory  that  does 
not  in  the  end  either  reduce  sin  to  a  minimum,  by  recognizing 
no  sin  but  that  of  sinful  volition,  or  else,  while  asserting  a 
sinful  nature,  does  it  at  the  expense  of  human  freedom  and 
responsibility."  f 

The  theory  of  Professor  Shedd  is  that  all  sin  has  its  origin 
in  will.  But  he  holds  that  will  often  acts  unconsciously,  and 
therefore  sin  may  be  originated  by  an  act  of  will  entirely 
beyond  our  consciousness — that  this,  indeed,  was  so  with  regard 
to  original  sin.  He  holds  that  the  will  is  in  some  sense  double ; 
consisting  first  of  a  power,  the  very  central  power  of  our  being, 
to  choose  a  nature,  or  what  Nathaniel  Taylor  calls  a  ruling 
purpose ;  and  then  a  power  to  make  separate  individual  choices  ; 
as,  for  instance,  a  man  primarily  by  this  first  will  determines 
upon  self  as  the  law  of  his  life ;  having  so  determined,  all  his 
after  separate  volitions  will  take  their  rise  from  this  first  and 
highest  act  of  will,  and  will  derive  their  moral  character  from 
it.  This  primary  act  carries  his  moral  nature  with  it;  and 
when  once  the  primary  determination  has  been  taken  it  is 
forever  irrevocable,  if  wrong ;  the  choice  becomes  a  nature, 
originated,  it  is  true,  by  the  will,  but  afterward  unchangeable 
*Pp.  260,  261.  t  P.2'70. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


by  the  same  power!  This  primary  determination  to  a  wrong 
end  is  original  sin,  and  dates  anterior  to  any  conscious  personal 
act  of  separate  individual  choice.  He  supposes  it  to  have  tran¬ 
spired  with  regard  to  every  human  being  in  Eden  and  in  Adam ! 
That  then  your  will  and  mine,  in  some  mysterious  manner,  went 
astray,  in  consequence  of  which  all  our  subsequent  acts  of  will 
go  astray  also — the  effect  of  that  primary  estrangement ;  and 
for  this  primary  estrangement  we  are  guilty  because  it  is 
product  of  will. 

The  first  thing  noticeable  here  is  the  inconsistency  of  ranking 
this  as  an  Augustinian  or  Calvinistic  view,  with  which  it  is  in 
direct  and  violent  antagonism ;  they  holding  that  we  are  guilty 
for  Adam's  sin,  this  teaching  that  we  are  guilty  for  our  own — 
as  opposite  positions  as  possible;  they  teaching  that  our 
depravity  is  our  sin — contradicting  themselves  also,  this 
teaching  that  sin  is  our  act,  and  not  our  depravity.  The 
resemblance  in  the  theories  is  that  they  locate  sin  at  the  very 
starting  point  of  our  being:  one  in  our  very  generation,  the 
other  in  an  act  of  will  which  unconsciously  transpires  immedi¬ 
ately  following  our  generation ;  the  act  of  will  superinduced  by 
what  is  given  in  our  generation.  This  is  called  original  sin, 
not,  as  the  older  theorists  teach,  because  it  was  Adam’s  first, 
and  not  because  it  is  something  given  in  generation,  but  be¬ 
cause  it  begins,  or  rather  takes  its  rise  in  us,  at  the  very  foun¬ 
tain  head  of  our  being,  and  from  a  nature  transmitted  to  us ; 
not  the  nature,  but  from  the  nature. 

The  plausibility  of  the  theory  arises  from  the  real  truth 
which  underlies  it :  in  the  proposition  that  sin  is  an  act  of  will ; 
that  our  sin,  therefore,  begins  when  we  begin  to  sinfully  act. 
This  is  truth,  and  it  is  fatal  to  the  whole  scheme  which  imputes 
guilt  to  us  for  Adam’s  sin.  It  is  rank  heresy  to  the  system 
it  is  invented  to  support,  as  we  shall  show  in  our  strictures. 

The  fault  of  the  theory  is  that  it  locates  sin  at  an  impossible 
6 


Punishment. 


163 


period ;  it  supposes  us  to  act  sinfully  when  we  could  not  act  at 
all.  Its  error  is  not  that  it  imputes  Adam’s  sin  to  us — and 
therefore  it  comes  not  under  the  general  category  which  we  are 
here  considering — but  that  it  makes  our  sin  to  arise  at  the 
fountain  head  of  our  being,  where,  as  we  shall  see,  the  capacity 
for  it  does  not  exist.  It  may  be  true,  as  it  assumes,  that  acts 
of  will  antedate  consciousness,  and  transpire  unnoticed  by  the 
mind  willing,  but  such  acts  of  will  cannot  possess  the  quality 
of  sin. 

"What  is  that  act  of  will  that  includes  or  constitutes  sin  ?  It 
must  be  answered  by  all  that  it  is  that  act  of  will  which  deter¬ 
mines  upon  a  wrong  action  or  feeling  with  respect  to  law ;  a 
transgression  of  law  which  ought  to  be  obeyed.  But  does  this 
exhaust  the  whole  idea?  Or,  in  order  that  the  act  of  will 
may  have  the  quality  of  sin,  is  it  not  presupposed  that  the  party 
held  knew  the  law  and  perceived  the  obligation?  Can  we 
predicate  sin  where  there  is  no  intelligence  ?  A  tiger  acts  when 
he  devours  a  human  being,  but  does  he  sin  ?  Why  not  ?  The 
answer  is  plain :  because  he  lacks  the  intelligence  which  ren¬ 
ders  him  capable  of  a  moral  act — capable  of  knowing  law  and 
feeling  obligation;  conditions  indispensable  to  moral  quality. 
But  has  the  newborn  human  child  any  such  intelligence?  Does 
it  perceive  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong?  Does  it 
feel  the  force  of  moral  obligation  ?  Does  it  intelligently  will  ? 
Deprive  a  man  of  his  intelligence,  his  moral  power  of  discern¬ 
ing  between  right  and  wrong ;  reduce  him  to  the  plane  of  a 
nonrational  creature :  could  he  then  be  held  by  law  ?  Do  me: 
ever  conceive  of  such  as  accountable?  Can  they  so  regard 
him  ?  W as  law  ever  made  for  such  ?  Is  an  infant  rational  ? 
It  will  be  ;  is  it  the  day  it  is  placed  in  the  mother’s  arms  ?  To 
propound  these  questions  is  to  answer  them. 

We  all  know  that  in  the  child  are  the  rudiments  of  a  moral 
nature,  but,  as  yet,  no  capacity  for  moral  action ;  the  power,  it 


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may  be,  to  will  and  to  think  and  to  feel,  but  not  the  power  to 
will,  think,  or  feel  morally.  To  impute  moral  quality  to  its 
acts  is  as  irrational  as  to  impute  it  to  the  freaks  of  lightning  or 
caprices  of  the  wind ;  there  is  really  no  more  proper  intelligence 
in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 

That  an  act  of  will  is  wrong,  that  is,  contrary  to  law,  is  not 
what  alone  constitutes  the  person  a  sinner,  but  that  it  is  known 
by  the  person  who  commits  it  to  be  wrong ;  that  he  commits  it 
with  the  feeling  that  it  is  wrong.  This  is  a  point  which  surely 
need  not  be  discussed  here.  The  seat  of  the  morality  is  the 
will  acting  understanding^ — the  intention.  “As  a  man 
thinketh  [purposeth]  in  his  heart,  so  is  he.” 

Thus,  if  it  were  allowed  that  action  of  will  commences  long 
before  consciousness,  with  the  very  dawn  of  being,  and  wrong 
action,  as  to  the  law  governing  wills ;  if  it  could  be  shown  that 
even  thus  early  the  infant  will  acts  selfward  and  not  Godward,  it 
proves  nothing  as  to  moral  quality,  furnishes  no  basis  for  the 
charge  of  sin ;  since  the  wrong  action  is  not  moral  action,  be¬ 
cause  not  rational,  and  the  wrong  quality  not  moral  quality, 
which  can  only  attach  to  moral  action ! 

The  theory  assumes  that  the  great  radical  action  of  will  tran¬ 
spired  in  Adam.  This  has  been  shown  to  be  absurd,  inasmuch 
as  the  will  was  not  existing  in  Adam— that  is,  the  will  of  non¬ 
existing  posterity.  If  it  should  be  assumed  that  it  acted  in  the 
infant  the  moment  it  became  an  existence  the  difficulty  remains, 
in  all  its  force,  that  in  an  infant  there  can  be  no  moral  will. 
Allow  its  tendency  to  self,  yet  it  is  an  irrational  tendency — as 
much  so  as  in  the  case  of  any  instinct — and  can  have  no  more 
elements  of  morality  in  it  than  any  other  case  of  instinctive 
action.  The  whole  affectional  nature  moves  indeed  wrong, 
but  not  morally  so.  The  nature  is  depraved  in  its  central 
powers,  but  not  guilty. 

Standing  in  close  proximity  to  this,  but  radically  different 


Punishment. 


165 


from  it,  is  the  theory  of  Coleridge,  substantially  accepted  by 
Professor  Shedd,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  by  Dr.  Taylor,  of  New 
Haven.  As  we  understand  it,  it  is  this — and  we  must  bear 
with  us  the  recollection  that  in  this  case,  as  in  those  already 
referred  to,  the  design  of  the  theory  is  to  show  how  we  are 
justly  held  for  original  sin :  that  the  proper  seat  of  sin  is  the 
will ;  in  other  words,  that  in  all  cases  it  is  the  action  of  a  per¬ 
sonal  will— precisely  the  ground  we  have  taken ;  that,  there¬ 
fore,  our  original  sin  consists  in  an  action  of  our  will,  but  that 
our  wills  act  as  soon  as  we  exist,  and  act  wrong ;  that,  there¬ 
fore,  our  sin  dates  back  to  the  very  dawn  of  our  being — even 
before  consciousness  itself ;  we  sin  before  we  know  it,  or,  in¬ 
deed,  before  we  know  anything.  The  theory,  it  would  seem 
sometimes,  rests  upon  realism,  and  supposes  a  coaction  of  our 
wills  with  Adam.  This  is  undoubtedly  Professor  Shedd’s  view. 
We  doubt  whether  Coleridge  went  so  far.  His  statement  will 
be  found  in  volume  i,  pages  269  to  289,  Aids  to  Reflection ,  con¬ 
taining  his  strictures  on  Jeremy  Taylor’s  Doctrines  of  Original 
Sin.  We  cannot  quote  him  in  full.  Let  the  student  refer  to 
him.  Dr.  Shedd  says : 

“  In  regard  to  the  first  point,  the  position  taken  is  that  the 
sinful  nature  is  in  the  will,  and  is  the  product  of  the  will.  We 
say  that  it  is  in  the  will,  in  contradistinction  to  the  physical 
nature  of  man.  Our  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  original  sin 
makes  it  consist  in  the  deprivation  of  man’s  sensuous  nature 
merely.  In  this  case  the  will  is  conceived  to  be  extraneous  to 
this  corrupted  nature,  and  merely  the  executor  of  it.  Original 
sin,  in  this  case,  is  not  in  the  voluntary  part  of  man,  but  in  the 
involuntary  part  of  him ;  and  guilt  cleaves  to  him  when  the 
voluntary  part  executes  the  promptings  of  the  involuntary  part ; 
and  guilt  does  not  cleave  to  him  until  this  does  take  place. 
The  adherents  of  this  view  insist  (and  properly,  too,  if  the 
statement  is  correct)  that  the  term  ‘  sinful,’  in  the  sense  of 


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guilty  or  criminal,  cannot  be  applied  to  this  depraved  physical 
nature — to  this  (so-called)  original  sin. 

“In  opposition  to  this  view  we  affirm  that  original  sin  does 
not  consist  in  the  depravation  of  man’s  sensuous  or  physical 
nature,  but  in  the  depravation  of  the  will  itself  The  corruption 
of  the  physical  nature  of  man  is  one  of  the  consequences  of 
original  sin,  but  not  original  sin  itself.  This  is  depravation  of 
a  far  deeper  and  more  central  faculty  than  that  of  sense — a 
corruption  of  the  voluntary  power  itself.  It  is  because  the 
human  will — the  governing  power  of  the  soul — first  fell  away 
from  God  that  the  other  faculties  of  man  are  in  the  condition 
they  are  in,  that  the  affections  are  carnal,  that  the  understand¬ 
ing  is  darkened,  that  the  physical  nature  is  depraved ;  and 
these  effects  of  apostasy  should  never  be  put  in  the  place  of 
their  cause — of  that  corruption  of  the  will  which  is  the  origin 
of  them  all. 

“But  the  examination  of  a  single  instance  of  the  gratifica¬ 
tion  of  a  sensuous  propensity  is  enough  to  show  that  sin  lies 
elsewhere  than  in  the  physical  nature.  A  man,  we  will  sup¬ 
pose,  gratifies  the  sensuous  craving  for  strong  drink.  The  sin 
in  this  case  does  not  lie  in  the  craving  of  the  sensuous  nature, 
corrupt  though  it  be.  The  sin  in  the  case  lies  further  back,  in 
the  will ;  and,  be  it  observed,  not  solely  in  that  particular  voli¬ 
tion  of  the  will  by  which  the  act  of  drinking  was  performed, 
but  ultimately  in  that  abiding  state  of  the  will — that  selfishness 
or  selfish  motive  in  the  will — which  prompted  and  permitted 
the  volition.  Here,  as  in  every  instance,  we  are  led  back  to  a 
sinful  nature  as  the  essence  of  sin ;  and  this  nature  we  find  in 
the  will  itself ;  we  find  it  to  be  a  particular  state  of  the  will 
itself. 

“But,  besides  saying  that  this  sinful  nature  is  in  the  will,  we 
have  said  furthermore  that  it  is  the  product  of  the  will.  By 
this  we  mean  that  the  efficient  producing  author  of  this  sinful 


Punishment. 


167 


nature  is  the  will  itself ;  in  other  words,  that  this  nature  is  self- 

willed,  a  self-determined  nature. 

“Here,  then,  we  have  a  depraved  nature,  and  a  depraved 
nature  that  is  guilt,  because  it  is  a  self-originated  nature. 
Here,  then,  is  the  child  of  wrath.  Were  this  nature  created 
and  put  in  man,  as  an  intellectual  nature,  or  as  a  particular 
temperament,  or  put  in  him  by  the  Creator  of  all  things,  it 
would  not  be  a  responsible  and  guilty  nature,  nor  would  man 
be  a  child  of  wrath.  But  it  does  not  thus  originate.  It  has  its 
origin  in  the  free  and  responsible  use  of  that  voluntary  power 
which  God  has  created  and  planted  in  the  human  soul,  as  its 
most  central,  most  mysterious,  and  most  hazardous  endowment. 
It  is  a  self-determined  nature — a  nature  originated  in  a  will  and 
by  a  will." 

Perhaps  no  writer  has  attempted  to  give  the  philosophy  of 
original  sin  so  directly  as  this  author.  His  theory  is  summed 
up  in  these  several  positions:  first,  original  sin  (all  sin)  has 
its  location  in  the  will ;  second,  it  is  produced  by  the  will  as  a 
self-determined  power.  The  correctness  of  these  positions  cannot 
be  questioned.  They  are  precisely  the  positions  we  should 
assume.  He  then  proceeds  to  define  what  he  means  by  the 
will,  having  made  it  the  seat  and  author  of  original  sin : 
“In  saying,  therefore,  that  the  sinful  nature  of  man  is  the 
product  of  the  will  we  do  not  mean  to  teach  that  it  has  its 
origin  in  the  will  considered  as  a  faculty  of  choices  or  particular 
volitions.  We  no  more  believe  that  original  sin  was  produced 
by  a  volition  than  that  it  can  be  destroyed  by  one.  And  if  we 
can  have  no  idea  of  the  will  except  as  a  faculty  of  single 
choices,  and  no  idea  of  voluntary  actions  except  such  as  we 
are  conscious  of  in  our  volitions  and  resolutions,  then  we  grant 
that  the  sinful  nature  must  be  referred  to  some  other  producing 
cause  than  the  human  will,  and  that  the  epithets  ‘self-deter¬ 
mined  ’  and  ‘  self -originated 7  cannot  be  applied  to  it. 


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“  But  it  seems  to  us  that  we  have  a  fuller  and  more  adequate 
idea  of  the  voluntary  power  in  man  than  this  comes  to.  It 
seems  to  us  that  our  idea  of  the  human  will  is  by  no  means 
exhausted  of  its  contents  when  we  have  taken  into  view  merely 
the  ability  which  a  man  has  to  regulate  his  conduct  in  a  par¬ 
ticular  instance.  It  seems  to  us  that  we  do  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  controlling  power  in  the  soul  that  is  far  more 
central  and  profound  than  the  quite  superficial  faculty  by 
which  we  regulate  the  movements  of  our  lives  outwardly,  or 
inwardly  summon  up  our  energies  to  the  performance  of  par¬ 
ticular  acts.  It  seems  to  us  that  by  the  will  is  meant  a  voluntary 
power  that  lies  at  the  very  center  of  the  soul,  and  whose  move¬ 
ments  consist,  not  so  much  in  choosing  and  refusing,  in  refer¬ 
ence  to  particular  circumstances,  as  in  determining  the  whole 
man  with  reference  to  some  great  and  ultimate  end  of  living.  The 
characteristic  of  the  will  proper,  as  distinguished  from  the 
voluntary  faculty,  is  determination  of  the  whole  being  to  an 
ultimate  end ,  rather  than  selection  of  means  attaining  that  end 
in  a  particular  case.  (This  distinction  between  the  will  proper 
and  the  faculty  of  choices  is  marked  in  Latin  by  the  words 
voluntas  and  arbitrium ,  and  in  that  one  of  the  modern  tongues 
whose  vocabulary  for  philosophy  is  the  richest  of  all  by  the 
two  words  Wille  and  WilTkuhr.)  The  difference  between  the 
voluntary  and  volitionary  power — between  the  will  proper  and 
the  faculty  of  choices — may  be  seen  by  considering  a  particular 
instance  of  the  exercise  of  the  latter.  Suppose  that  a  man 
chooses  to  indulge  one  of  his  appetites  in  a  particular  instance 
— the  appetite  for  alcoholic  stimulus,  for  example — and  that 
he  actually  does  gratify  it.  In  this  instance  he  puts  forth  one 
single  volition  and  performs  one  particular  act  By  an  act  of 
the  faculty  of  choices,  of  which  he  is  distinctly  conscious,  and 
over  which  he  has  arbitrary  power,  he  drinks  and  gratifies  his 
appetite.  But  why  does  he  thus  choose  this  particular  instance  ? 


Punishment. 


169 


In  other  words,  is  there  not  deeper  ground  for  this  single 
volition  ?  Is  not  this  particular  act  of  choice  determined  by  a 
far  deeper  and  preexisting  determination  of  his  whole  inward 
being  to  self,  as  an  ultimate  end  of  being?  And  now,  if  the 
will  should  be  widened  out  and  deepened  so  as  to  contain  this 
whole  inward  state  of  the  man — the  entire  tendency  of  the  soul 
to  self  and  sin — is  it  not  plain  that  it  would  be  a  very  different 
power  from  that  which  puts  forth  the  particular  volition? 
"Would  not  the  will,  as  thus  conceived,  cover  a  wider  surface 
of  the  soul,  and  reach  down  to  a  far  deeper  depth  in  it,  than 
that  faculty  of  single  choices  which  covers  but  a  single  point 
on  the  surface,  and  never  goes  below  the  surface?  Would  not 
a  faculty  comprehensive  enough  to  include  the  whole  man,  and 
sufficiently  deep  and  central  to  be  the  origin  and  basis  of  a 
nature ,  a  character ,  a  permanent  moral  state ,  be  a  very  different 
faculty  from  that  volitionary  power  whose  activity  is  merely 
on  the  surface,  and  whose  products  are  single  resolutions  and 
transient  volitions  ? 

“Now,  by  the  will  we  mean  such  a  faculty.  We  mean  by  it 
voluntary  power  that  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  the  human 
soul,  constituting  its  central,  active  principle,  containing  the 
whole  moral  state,  and  all  the  moral  affections.  We  mean  by 
it  a  voluntary  power  that  carries  the  whole  inward  being  along 
with  it  when  it  moves ;  a  power,  in  short,  which  is  the  man 
himself — the  ego,  the  person. 

u  The  will,  as  thus  defined,  we  affirm  to  be  the  responsible 

and  guilty  author  of  the  sinful  nature.  Indeed ,  this  sinful 

nature  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  state  of  the  will;  nothing 

more  nor  less  than  its  constant  and  total  determination  to  self  as 

the  ultimate  end  of  living.  This  voluntary  power  lying  at  the 

bottom  of  the  soul,  as  its  elementary  base,  and  carrying  all  the 

faculties  and  powers  of  the  man  along  with  it,  whenever  it  moves 

and  wherever  it  goes,  has  turned  away  from  God,  as  an  ultimate 
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Studies  m  Theology. 


end ;  and  this  self-direction — the  permanent  and  entire  determi¬ 
nation  of  self — this  state  of  the  will — is  the  sinful  nature  of  man.” 

That  the  precise  view  of  the  author  may  be  seen  it  may  be 
proper  to  add,  before  we  proceed  to  examine  his  statements, 
still  other  positions.  That  act  of  the  will  which  he  makes  the 
ground  of  original  sin  is  the  determination  of  the  will  to  self  as 
the  ultimate  end  of  life.  This  he  holds  to  be  the  movement  of 
the  whole  nature  toward  self,  and  away  from  Grod — apostasy. 
This  primary  and  most  central  movement  revolutionizes  the 
moral  nature  and  enthrones  a  second,  a  perverted  nature,  which 
now  becomes  dominant  and  permanent,  out  of  which  all  subse¬ 
quent  separate  volitions  flow.  This  is  the  sinful  nature.  It 
involves  guilt  because  it  is  produced  by  the  primary  self- 
determined  action  of  the  will ;  self-superinduced ;  not  entailed 
— not  inherited.  Each  soul  is  its  author  in  itself — so  that  each 
soul  is  guilty  for  itself  and  not  for  another.  He  most  explicitly 
objects  to  all  transfer  of  guilt.  After  the  primary  movement 
of  the  will  toward  self  it  moves  freelv  forever  in  that  direction. 
All  after  separate  choices  are  free  choices,  but  inevitably 
toward  self ;  inasmuch  as  the  will  has  no  power  of  self -regen¬ 
eration  or  recovery  from  its  fall,  which  would  be  to  choose 
against  its  permanent  choice — to  act  virtuously  when  it  has  be¬ 
come  wholly  sinful. 

Having  established  that  acts  of  will  transpire  often  without 
our  being  conscious  of  them,  he  holds  that  this  great  act  of 
apostasy  transpired  before  we  were  conscious  of  it;  and  in 
proof  alleges  that  our  first  consciousness  is  of  guilt,  which 
involves  that  we  were  sinners  before  we  were  conscious  of  our 
act  of  sin.  He  then  proceeds  to  show  that  the  act  of  will  by 
which  we  apostatized  transpired  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  so  that 
our  guilt  antedates  our  birth.  The  argument  is  very  com¬ 
pact,  and  contains  so  much  of  truth  as  renders  it  exceedingly 

plausible,  and  to  the  unlearned  quite  forcible. 

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Punishment. 


171 


Enough  has  been  said  already  to  show  the  utter  untenability 
of  the  final  position,  that  the  act  of  the  apostasy  of  our  wills 
occurred  in  the  garden  of  Eden.  This  is  the  weak  point  of 
the  theory,  and  is  fatal  to  the  whole  argument  of  the  learned 
author.  If  it  were  all  admitted  but  this  one  point  it  fails  en¬ 
tirely  to  answer  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  produced,  namely, 
to  prove  that  we  are  born  guilty.  If  this  point  were  allowed 
it  would  favor  rather  the  theory  of  Edward  Beecher  than  the 
common  Calvinistic  view. 

But  let  us  search  into  its  general  contents.  It  is  undoubtedly 
correct  in  locating  sin  in  the  individual  will.  But  this  is  a 
fatal  admission  to  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  as  we  have 
abundantly  shown,  since  acts  of  will  must  transpire  after  wills 
exist  and  become  competent  to  action.  What  is  denominated  the 
depraved  state  of  the  will,  its  disposition,  is  admitted  by  the 
author  to  be  the  product  of  the  will  in  its  primary  choice ;  a 
self-chosen,  self-determined  nature — self-originated ;  but  this  is 
the  same  as  asserting  that  original  sin  is  not  innate,  but  pro¬ 
duced  by  after  action — unless,  as  has  been  shown  to  be  impos¬ 
sible,  the  will  really  existed  and  acted  before  the  person 
existed. 

If  we  suppose  original  sin  to  commence  with  the  first  act  of 
the  infant  will  which,  from  some  cause,  is  selfish  and  wrong, 
then  the  following  difficulties  are  insuperable. 

Dr.  Shedd  is  careful  to  state  that  it  was  not  mere  presence  of 
substance  but  was  also  coaction  of  will — and  yet  he  admits 
that  there  was  but  one  will  that  acted  :  11  The  will  of  the  whole 
species,  including  the  will  of  every  individual  within  it,  fell  in 
the  first  man.”  He  admits  that  we  were  not  conscious  of  the 
act,  and  makes  an  extended  and  very  able  argument  to  show 
that  wills  often  act  unconsciously.  But  his  argument  does  not 
touch  the  point  of  our  difficulty.  Dr.  Hodge  discards  the 
hypothesis  on  two  grounds  :  that  it  is  false  in  philosophy,  and 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


a  betrayal  of  the  doctrine  it  is  invented  to  serve — the  Calvinis- 
tic  theory.  We  discard  it  as  false  in  fact,  and  of  no  service  at 
all  to  the  point  it  is  supposed  to  establish — namely,  our  guilt 
in  the  matter  of  the  Adam’s  act 

The  same  objection  so  trenchantly  made  by  Dr.  Hodge 
against  the  realism  of  Dr.  Baird  bears  with  all  its  force  against 
Dr.  Shedd.  His  theory  of  coaction  of  will  rests  upon  the  as¬ 
sumption  of  coexistence  of  being.  But  this  is  utterly  without 
foundation.  The  superstructure  built  upon  it  stands  upon 
nothing — or  falsehood,  which  is  worse  than  nothing.  He 
predicates  coaction  of  a  factor  which  exists  only  in  his  imagina¬ 
tion  ;  and  upon  the  basis  of  the  action  of  this  shadowy  nothing 
he  founds  his  accusation  of  guilt  against  the  human  race.  The 
cofactor  whom  he  indicts  has  no  existence  and  never  did 
exist. 

But  if  it  were  true,  as  he  assumes,  that  there  was  such  a  co¬ 
existence,  it  was  of  such  a  kind  as,  according  to  his  own  show¬ 
ing,  precludes  coaction  in  such  a  form  as  to  become  ground  of 
personal  guilt.  He  predicates  a  generic  coexistence  and  a 
generic  coaction.  What  does  he  mean?  By  generic  coexist¬ 
ence  he  must  mean,  in  some  sort,  the  coexistence  of  the  essence 
of  human  nature  in  the  essence  of  Adam.  That  essence  must 
have  existed  as  personal  or  impersonal.  If  impersonal  it  could 
not  act  personally;  and,  since  nothing  but  a  person  can  act 
responsibly,  it  could  not  be  responsible  or  guilty.  If  personal, 
then  each  person  of  the  race  was  present  personally  in  Adam ; 
and  if  they  acted  responsibly  they  personally  acted — acted  as 
discrete  wills  and  not  as  a  generic  will,  and  then  they  are  guilty, 
not  for  the  Adam’s  sin,  but  each  person  for  his  own  sin.  Adam’s 
hand  plucked  the  fruit,  but  it  was  the  instrument,  not  of  his 
will  alone,  but  of  each  several  will  of  the  entire  race,  each  will 
acting  with  the  same  freedom  as  Adam  himself  possessed,  and 
under  the  same  conditions  of  moral  obligation.  It  is  but  a 

e 


Punishment. 


173 


modification  of  the  doctrine  of  the  preexistence  of  souls,  in 
which  state  they  sinned,  by  consequence  of  which  they  enter 
this  life  as  guilty,  and  a  much  less  plausible  form  of  it  than 
that  first  held  by  Origen  and  of  late  defended  by  Edward 
Beecher,  in  this  country,  and  Muller,  of  Germany. 

If  Dr.  Shedd  imagines  that  he  has  any  other  meaning  for  the 
words  generic  will — “the  will  of  the  whole  species,  generically 
including  the  will  of  every  individual  within  it  ” — let  him  try 
to  construe  his  phrase ;  he  will  find  that  the  words  are  mean¬ 
ingless. 

Let  us  see  how  this  is  :  A  will  acted  in  Eden.  Whose  will  ? 
A  generic  will,  it  is  answered.  That  is,  everybody’s  will.  Can 
you  separate  in  your  thought  a  will  from  a  person,  so  as  that 
the  will  may  be  present  and  act  when  the  person  whose  will  it 
is  is  not  present  and  not  even  existing  ?  There  was  a  person 
present  in  Eden  and  acting  in  the  transgression ;  the  act  was 
a  will  act.  Whose  will  act  ?  There  was  but  one  person  there, 
Dr.  Shedd  says,  and  yet  he  declares  that  that  act  of  will  was 
the  will  of  each  individual  of  unborn  generations  acting — your 
will  and  my  will ;  that  is,  our  wills  acted  when  we  did  not  exist. 
For  that  act  of  will,  which  was  not  mine  personally,  since  he 
says  I  did  not  personally  exist,  he  brings  me  in  personally 
guilty.  I  am  condemned  for  what  I  never  did,  but  another 
person  did,  long  before  I  had  being — my  will  being  present, 
though  I  was  not ;  and  my  will  acting,  though  I  had  no  exist¬ 
ence,  at  the  time  of  the  transaction. 

Life  is  permanent — lives  perish.  The  life  that  was  created 
and  shrined  in  Adam,  and  which  by  transmission  or  expansion 
has  appeared  along  the  ages,  and  which  now  pulsates  in  all 
human  veins,  is  an  indiscerptible  unit — the  same  life.  The 
millions  of  organisms  into  which  it  has  flowed,  and  in  which 
it  has  become  individualized,  have  been  utterly  distinct  from 
each  other,  having  no  common  elements,  but  only  resembling 


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Studies  ih  Theology. 


substance  and  arrangement,  but  the  life  itself  has  been  common 
and  perpetual.  It  has  never  intermitted.  An  unbroken  stream 
extends  from  the  first  to  the  last  man ;  that  mysterious  some¬ 
thing  called  life,  which  beats  in  my  heart  and  yours  to-day, 
thrilled  in  Adam’s  veins  when  he  opened  his  eyes  in  the 
unblighted  Eden.  The  individuals  die,  and  the  atomic  lives 
expire,  but  the  life  remains.  This,  then,  is  one  thing  we  have 
in  common  with  Adam.  No  one  can  tell  what  it  is.  We  call 
it,  in  our  blindness,  a  force.  It  pertains  to  matter — is  a  cre¬ 
ated  quality. 

In  addition  to  natural  life,  or  possibly  having  some  occult 
identity  with  it,  is  a  spiritual  entity  in  man.  As  to  its  origin 
there  are  two  theories.  One  is  known  as  creationism,  the 
other  as  traducianism.  The  former  supposes  that  each  human 
soul  is  a  distinct  creation ;  that  when  natural  life  is  propagated, 
at  some  moment  the  new  life  center,  probably  before  birth, 
when  it  has  elaborated  its  organism  and  is  about  to  become  a 
differentiated  life,  becomes  the  home  of  a  new  creation — a  soul. 
The  latter  holds  that  the  soul  entity,  in  some  occult  manner 
propagated  with  the  natural  life,  is  the  projection  of  the  human 
parent  It  is  no  objection  to  this  view  that  we  cannot  under¬ 
stand  how  this  might  be.  The  whole  subject  is  too  deep  for 
us — eludes  our  gross  apprehension.  The  soul  soon  discovers 
itself,  but  neither  knows  nor  tells  the  mystery  of  its  origin. 
We  incline  to  the  hypothesis  of  its  propagation,  and  so  some 
occult  unity  of  human  souls  as  of  human  life. 

Supposing  these  wonderful  unities,  do  they  reflect  any  light 
on  the  problem  of  human  sin?  It  has  been  so  supposed. 
Identity  of  the  soul  essence  of  the  man  of  to-day  with  the 
man  of  Eden  is  conceived  to  connect  the  man  of  to-day  with 
the  sin  of  Eden.  If  sin  were  attribute  of  an  essence  this  might 
be  conceivable,  but  as  it  is  the  quality  of  an  act  of  a  personal 

will,  with  relation  to  law,  it  does  not  appear  how  it  might  be. 

6 


Punishment. 


175 


The  fact  of  identity  of  life  and  soul  essence,  if  established, 
might  explain  effects  in  the  nature :  tendencies — abnormal 
conditions — common  phenomena  in  the  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  nature.  These  would  seem  to  be  propagated.  Like 
would  beget  like.  Universal  depravity  may  be  thus  explained 
as  a  fact  of  the  life  force  or  essence — disease  in  the  whole 
physical  and  spiritual  nature — carried  along  from  generation 
to  generation.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  the  fact 
of  sin  does  affect  the  being  that  sins,  but  it  is  conceivable  that 
it  may  attack  his  essence  in  some  manner,  producing  perma¬ 
nent  effects  of  disorder  in  it.  Metaphysical  causes  do  affect 
substances.  But,  even  supposing  such  effects  wrought  in  the 
nature  by  sin,  the  effects  are  not  the  sin. 

Of  entity,  substance,  essence,  of  any  kind,  we  know  but  lit¬ 
tle,  and  can  predicate  but  little.  So  far  as  we  can  know  any¬ 
thing,  we  know  that  form  is  form  of  a  reality — being ;  we  call  it 
substance.  So  of  thought  and  will.  W e  cannot  see  it  as  we  do 
form ;  but  we  know  that  it  has  a  home ;  it  is  thought  and  will 
of  some  real  being;  some  causational  center.  We  cannot  see 
its  shape  or  form  ;  or  touch  or  weigh  it ;  or  dissect  it  as  we  can 
solids,  and  even  gases  or  electricity ;  but  we  are  certain  that 
thought,  emotion,  and  will  are  facts  which  as  clearly  point  to 
a  real  being  as  do  form  and  weight  and  hardness.  W e  know 
not  how  a  sinful  volition  of  such  a  spiritual  being  may  leave 
its  mark  on  the  very  essence  itself — how  it  may  affect  its 
powers.  There  are  effects  which  lie  beyond  our  ken.  But  if 
such  effects  are  possible  they  might  explain  how  degeneracy 
could  be  propagated.  We  see  the  fact  that  it  is,  but  do  not 
see  the  how — do  not  know  exactly  what  it  is,  but  only  that  it 
is  abnormal  condition  of  the  being;  but  whatever  it  is,  and 
however  radical  or  superficial,  we  know  that  it  is  but  the  effect 
of  sin,  not  sin  itself. 

By  sin  Adam  became  subject  to  attainder;  his  life  was 


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forfeit,  liis  estate  confiscate.  Redemption  supervened  for  liis 
restoration ;  "but  while  it  arrested  process  of  law,  and  provided 
pardon,  it  did  not  rehabilitate  him.  It  left  him  under  the  cloud 
of  death  and  degeneracy  during  his  earthly  life,  as  the  sad 
memorial  of  his  sin ;  stains  which  even  pardon  and  restored 
favor  did  not,  and  do  never,  remove ;  stains  which  reach  over 
to  his  children  along  all  the  lines  of  their  generation,  reminding 
them  of  the  disastrous  sin  of  their  primitive  ancestor.  The 
race  blood  is  attaint.  But  these  effects  of  his  sin,  carried  over 
under  redemption,  are  not  its  penalties.  It  is  a  perversion  of 
language  to  call  them  so. 

The  case  is  that  of  a  worthy  nobleman  who  by  treason  for¬ 
feits  his  life  and  in  madness  burns  up  the  titles  to  his  estates 
and  houses ;  who  at  the  time  is  without  heirs,  but  is  in  wed¬ 
lock,  and  his  wife  is  partner  of  his  crime.  The  law  attaches 
dishonor  and  death  to  their  crime.  But  the  king,  for  some  con¬ 
sideration — say  respect  to  the  family  name,  or  the  intercession 
of  the  queen,  or  any  of  a  thousand  amiable  reasons — is  induced 
or  disposed  to  relax  the  law,  or  restrain  its  penalty,  but  he  will 
do  so  in  such  manner  as  not  to  weaken  the  force  of  law  or 
minify  the  culprit’s  sense  of  his  crime.  He  will  be  gracious, 
but  also  just  to  his  own  rights ;  he  will  spare,  but  he  will  ef¬ 
fectually  admonish.  He  calls  his  subject  before  him,  and  sets 
forth  the  law  and  its  penalty,  and  makes  this  announcement : 
Your  crime  has  forfeited  your  life,  and  your  madness  has  de¬ 
stroyed  your  estate.  They  were  yours;  I  gave  them  to  you; 
you  have  forfeited  them ;  I  am  disposed  to  be  merciful  to  you. 
This  I  will  do :  I  will  suspend  the  penalty  which  you  have  in¬ 
curred  ;  I  will  give  you  time  to  repent ;  and  on  certain  condi¬ 
tions  I  will  pardon  you  and  restore  the  privileges  which  you 
have  forfeited,  or  their  equivalents ;  but  your  restoration  will 
be  in  such  form  as  always  to  remind  you  of  your  crime  and 

of  my  clemency ;  the  memorials  of  these  shall  always  go  with 
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177 


you,  and  be  perpetuated  with  all  your  descendants.  Your  es¬ 
tates,  that  would  have  descended  to  them  by  inheritance,  will 
henceforth  come  to  them  by  grace,  and  on  conditions.  Had 
you  been  loyal  they  would  have  been  born  to  honor  and  emol¬ 
uments.  They  will  now  be  born  to  shame  and  poverty.  This 
will  he  known  as  the  effect  of  your  crime ;  but  the  shame  and 
poverty  and  death  to  which  your  crime  subjects  them,  while  it 
will  be  a  perpetual  memorial  of  your  guilt,  will  denote  nothing 
of  guilt  in  them ;  they  shall  know  that  you  have  ruined  them ; 
I  am  their  friend  and  saviour ;  the  curse  that  you  have  entailed 
as  inheritance  I  will  turn  to  blessing ;  the  inheritance  you  have 
wasted  I  will  restore.  They  will  suffer,  but  only  that  by  way 
of  suffering  I  may  restore  them.  The  shame  and  poverty  and 
death  to  which  they  shall  be  born  will  answer  to  no  claim  of 
law,  but  to  the  reverberation  of  the  blow  that  falls  upon  your 
guilty  head. 

Thus  it  seems  that  the  evils  of  degeneracy  are  in  the  world 
by  sin,  but  are  concomitants  of  an  economy  of  mercy ;  memo¬ 
rials  of  sin,  but  not  less  memorials  of  grace. 

Unity  of  substance,  or  occult  connection  of  being,  in  some 
intimate  manner,  as  to  mere  essence,  whether  of  spirit  or  mat¬ 
ter,  while  it  might  suffice  to  account  for  certain  phenomena, 
could  not  go  beyond  that  Moral  character  differs  from  moral 
nature.  The  latter  may  be  propagated  or  inherited,  the  former 
cannot;  the  nature  may  be  common  to  two  or  to  many,  the 
character  must  be  personal  and  singular.  The  moral  nature 
may  exist  without  character ;  may  exist  without  either  virtue 
or  vice,  as  in  infants.  The  character  requires  the  nature,  but 
does  not  issue  until  the  person  inheriting  the  nature  has  morally 
acted,  and  is  the  result,  or  rather  the  substance,  thereof.  Na¬ 
ture  is  what  the  being  is  in  his  tendencies  and  powers.  Char¬ 
acter  is  what  the  being  is  in  relation  to  law  touching  his  duty. 
Duty  cannot  be  predicated  of  nature,  but  only  of  a  person  as 


178  Studies  in  Theology. 

to  the  right  use  of  his  nature ;  and  character  is  as  the  right  or 
wrong  use. 

It  is  said  that  the  suffering  of  death  and  all  other  forms  of 
suffering  which  came  to  Adam  on  account  of  his  sin  were  tokens 
of  the  divine  wrath  and  judicial  visitations  for  the  maintenance 
of  law — punishments.  Death  is  explicitly  stated,  in  the  law 
itself,  to  be  the  penalty  of  sin.  It  is  repeated  in  many  forms 
throughout  revelation:  “Because  thou  hast  hearkened, ”  etc. 
“  The  wages  of  sin  is  death.  ”  “By  one  man  sin  entered  into 
the  world,  and  death  by  sin.” 

There  is  not  perfect  agreement  as  to  the  exact  import  of  the 
word  death.  It  is  used  in  a  triple  sense  in  the  Scriptures,  un¬ 
doubtedly.  In  one  case  it  signifies  the  dissolution  of  the  body 
and  its  concomitants ;  in  another  it  signifies  the  state  of  a  soul 
in  which  sin  reigns ;  in  a  third  it  signifies  permanent  sever¬ 
ance  from  communion  with  God  and  endurance  of  his  displeas¬ 
ure.  These  are,  all  and  severally,  death.  Are  they  all  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  penalty  of  sin  ?  It  is  so  generally  understood  by 
evangelical  theologians. 

We  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  they  are, 
all  and  severally,  the  effects  of  sin — facts  that  never  would 
have  existed  but  for  sin — but  whether  the  several  forms  con¬ 
stitute  the  penalty  of  sin  may  possibly  be  questioned.  Whether 
the  presence  of  the  first  form  is  declarative  of  the  sin  of  the 
subject,  and  whether  the  second  form  is  an  effect  of  penalty  or 
is  simply  the  state  of  the  subject,  may  be  doubted. 

Much  in  the  answer  must  depend  upon  the  exact  meaning 
we  attach  to  the  word  punishment.  If  we  mean  suffering 
directly  inflicted  on  the  sinner  for  his  sin  and  for  the  main¬ 
tenance  of  law — and  that  seems  to  be  its  meaning — in  that 
case  the  sinner’s  suffering  only,  and  that  part  which  is  judicially 
inflicted,  is  punishment.  Yet,  further,  it  enters  into  the  idea 
of  punishment  that  the  reason  of  the  suffering  is  in  the  fact 


Punishment. 


179 


of  the  sin ;  and  as  punishment  it  is  a  suffering  which  is  confined 
to  the  sinner,  in  whom  the  sin  exists,  as  its  sole  reason. 

But  suppose  the  punishment  inflicted  on  the  sinner  for  his 
sin  be  such  as  to  carry  over  suffering  to  others  who  did  not 
sin,  the  question  arises,  Are  these  sufferings  penal  ?— -that  is,  ■ 
Are  they  judicially  inflicted  on  the  sinner  for  the  maintenance 
of  law  ?  A  commits  a  murder.  The  law,  for  its  support, 
affixes  death  to  that  crime — the  death  of  the  murderer.  This 
is  the  penalty  of  the  law  ;  that  is  punishment.  Now,  when  A 
is  executed,  a  consequence  is  that  his  children  suffer  in  many 
forms.  Are  these  sufferings  penal?  Are  they  judicially  in¬ 
flicted  for  the  maintenance  of  law;  are  they  for  the  sin  of  the 
sufferer  ?  If  any  should  so  say  would  we  not  conclude  that 
his  moral  perceptions  are  dull  and  his  understanding  of  language 
defective  ? 

It  would  seem  from  these  reflections  that  punishment  justly 
inflicted  declares  the  sin  of  the  subject  in  all  cases,  but  it  would 
also  seem  that  punishment  inflicted  on  a  sinning  person  to 
declare  his  guilt,  and  to  support  the  law  which  he  has  dis¬ 
honored,  may,  in  many  ways,  give  rise  to  other  forms  of  suffer¬ 
ing,  reaching  out  to  other  and  perfectly  innocent  beings ; 
which  sufferings  may  be  even  greater  than  the  real  and  great 
penal  suffering  endured  by  the  guilty  himself — may  be  greater 
in  a  hundred  different  sufferers  than  that  inflicted  on  the  guilty 
— and  in  no  proper  sense  any  part  of  the  legal  penalty,  but 
only  accidents  of  its  infliction  ;  the  essential  difference  being, 
not  in  the  amount  of  the  suffering,  but  in  the  subjects  and 
sources.  In  the  one  case  the  subject  is  guilty ;  in  the  other 
case  he  is  innocent.  In  the  former  case  law  inflicts  suffering 
for  its  support ;  in  the  latter  the  consequences  of  guilt  affect 
the  innocent,  but  not  as  penalty. 

Mr.  Wesley  and  Mr.  Watson  held  to  imputation  in  a  certain 
sense,  but  by  no  means  in  the  Calvinistic  sense.  They  held  to 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


punishment  and  guilt  on  account  of  Adam’s  sin,  but  not  at  all 
in  the  Calvinistic  sense. 

These  points  are  clearly  set  forth,  especially  in  Mr.  Watson: 
That  Adam’s  sin  was  personal  in  such  sense  that  he  alone 
became  subject  to  its  proper  penalty  of  eternal  death.  But 
they  hold  that  it  was  imputed  in  a  sense  to  the  unborn  poten¬ 
tialities  in  him,  in  such  a  way  that  the  punishment  of  death 
reached  them  as  the  extinction  of  their  seminal  existence. 

They  hold  that  being  born  with  depravity  is  in  a  sort  sin, 
but  not  sin  that  is  punishable  with  eternal  death ;  and  yet  that 
it  is  punishable.  They  distinguish  between  punishments  proper 
and  penal  consequences;  as,  when  a  murderer  is  hanged  for 
his  crime  he  is  punished,  but  his  children  who  suffer  the  con' 
sequent  disgrace  may  be  said  to  be  punished.  The  punishment 
in  the  first  case  being  on  account  of  guilt  as  its  desert ;  in  the 
second  case  being  simply  suffering  consequent  upon  a  relation 
of  some  kind  to  the  sufferer. 

“  Nowhere  is  it  said,  or  even  hinted  in  the  most  distant 
manner,  that  men  will  be  sentenced  to  eternal  death  at  that  day, 
either  because  of  Adam’s  sin  or  because  their  connection  with 
Adam  made  them  inevitably  corrupt  in  nature  and  unholy  in 
conduct;  from  which  effects  they  could  not  escape,  because 
God  from  eternity  had  resolved  to  deny  them  the  grace  neces¬ 
sary  to  this  end.”  * 

“  What  the  race  would  have  been  had  not  the  redeeming 
plan  been  brought  in  the  Scriptures  nowhere  tell  us,  except 
that  a  sentence  of  death,  to  be  executed  ‘  in  the  day  ’  in  which 
the  first  pair  sinned,  was  the  sanction  of  the  law  under  which 
they  were  placed ;  and  it  is  great  presumption  to  assume  it  as 
a  truth  that  they  would  have  multiplied  their  species  only  for 
eternal  destruction.  That  the  race  would  have  been  propa¬ 
gated  under  an  absolute  necessity  of  sinning,  and  of  being 

*  Theological  Institutes ,  part  ii,  pp.  397,  398. 


6 


Punishment. 


181 


made  eternally  miserable,  we  may  boldly  affirm  to  be  impossible ; 
because  it  supposes  an  administration  contradicted  by  every 
attribute  which  the  Scriptures  ascribe  to  God.”* 

Thus  he  explicitly  denies  the  possibility  of  such  a  participa¬ 
tion  in  Adam’s  sin  by  his  posterity  as  to  expose  to  the  penalty 
of  eternal  death.  Mr.  Wesley  holds  the  same  view,  and  asserts, 
as  Mr.  Watson  does,  as  a  maxim:  “The  Judge  of  the  whole 
earth  will  do  right ;  ”  “  He  will  judge  the  world  in  righteous¬ 
ness,”  and  every  man  therein  according  to  the  strictest  justice. 
He  will  punish  no  man  for  doing  anything  which  he  could  not 
possibly  avoid,  neither  for  omitting  anything  which  he  could 
not  possibly  do.  Every  punishment  supposes  the  offender 
might  have  avoided  the  offense  for  which  he  is  punished. 
Otherwise  to  punish  him  would  be  palpably  unjust  and  incon¬ 
sistent  with  the  character  of  God,  our  Governor. 

“  Taking  these  principles,  let  them  be  applied  to  the  case  be¬ 
fore  us.  The  scheme  of  predestination  in  question  contem¬ 
plates  the  human  race  as  fallen  in  Adam.  It  must,  therefore, 
contemplate  them  either  as  seminally  in  Adam,  not  being  yet 
bom,  or  as  to  be  actually  born  into  the  world. 

“In  the  former  case  the  only  actual  beings  to  be  charged 
with  sin,  ‘  the  transgression  of  the  law,’  were  Adam  and  Eve; 
for  the  rest  of  the  human  race  not  being  actually  existent  were 
not  capable  of  transgressing,  or  if  they  were,  in  a  vague  sense, 
capable  of  it  by  virtue  of  the  federal  character  of  Adam,  yet 
then  only  as  potential ,  and  not  as  actual ,  beings  ;  beings,  as  the 
logicians  say,  in  posse ,  not  in  esse.  Our  first  parents  rendered 
themselves  liable  to  eternal  death.  This  is  granted  ;  and  had 
they  died  fin  the  day’  they  sinned,  which  but  for  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  a  system  of  mercy  and  long-suffering,  and  the  ap¬ 
pointment  of  a  new  kind  of  probation,  for  anything  that 
appears,  they  must  have  done,  the  human  race  would  have 

*P.  398. 


6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


perished  with  them,  and  the  only  conscious  sinners  would  have 
been  the  only  conscious  sufferers.  But  then  this  lays  no  foun¬ 
dation  for  election  and  reprobation — the  whole  race  would  thus 
have  perished  without  the  vouchsafement  of  mercy  to  any. 

u  This  predestination  must  therefore  respect  the  human  race 
fallen  in  Adam,  as  to  be  born  actually,  and  to  have  a  real,  as 
well  as  a  potential,  existence ;  and  the  doctrine  will  be  that  the 
race  so  contemplated  were  made  unconditionally  liable  to  eternal 
death.  In  this  case  the  decree  takes  effect  immediately  upon 
the  fall,  and  determines  the  condition  of  every  individual  in 
respect  to  his  being  elected  from  this  common  misery,  or  his 
being  left  in  it;  and  it  rests  its  plea  of  justice  upon  the  assumed 
fact  that  every  man  is  absolutely  liable  to  eternal  death  wholly 
and  entirely  for  the  sin  of  Adam,  a  sin  to  which  he  was  not  a 
consenting  party,  because  he  was  not  in  actual  existence.  But 
if  eternal  death  be  ‘  the  wages  of  sin,'  and  the  sin  which  receives 
such  wages  be  the  transgression  of  a  law  by  a  voluntary  agent 
(and  this  is  the  rule  as  laid  down  by  God  himself),  then  on  no 
scriptural  principle  is  the  human  race  to  be  considered  abso¬ 
lutely  liable  to  personal  and  conscious  eternal  death  for  the  sin 
of  Adam,  and  so  the  very  ground  assumed  by  the  advocates  of 
this  theory  is  unfounded.”  * 

The  principle  bodied  in  all  these  quotations,  as  maxims  of 
divine  jurisprudence  to  which  the  divine  administration  must 
conform,  is  that  a  sin  must  be  personal,  and  hence  that  Adam's 
sin  cannot  be  imputed  to  his  posterity  as  ground  of  punish¬ 
ment  and  guilt.  The  same  is  positively  affirmed  in  a  passage 
on  page  342.  It  occurs  in  his  discussion  of  election,  in  com¬ 
menting  on  the  case  of  the  nonelect  He  says:  “In  whatever 
light  the  subject  be  viewed,  no  fault,  in  any  right  construction, 
can  be  chargeable  on  the  persons  so  punished,  or,  as  we  may 
rather  say,  destroyed,  since  punishment  supposes  a  judicial  pro- 

*P.  395. 


6 


Punishment. 


183 


ceeding  which  this  act  shuts  out.  For  either  the  reprobates  are 
destroyed  for  a  pure  reason  of  sovereignty,  without  any  refer¬ 
ence  to  their  sinfulness,  and  thus  all  criminality  is  left  out  of 
the  consideration,  or  they  are  destroyed  for  the  sin  of  Adam, 
to  which  they  were  not  consenting ;  or  for  personal  faults  re¬ 
sulting  from  a  corruption  of  nature  which  they  brought  into 
the  world  with  them,  and  which  God  wills  not  to  correct,  and 
they  have  no  power  to  correct  themselves.  Every  received 
notion  of  justice  is  thus  violated .” 

It  is  not  pretended  that  in  no  case  can  the  sin  of  one  occa¬ 
sion  suffering  to  another  or  others.  Such  may  be  the  relations 
of  parties,  either  natural  or  social,  that  neither  can  suffer  with¬ 
out  the  other  participating.  The  suffering  resulting  from  pun¬ 
ishment  inflicted  on  one  for  crime  may  inevitably  reach  others, 
even  more  acutely  than  the  criminal  himself.  The  evil  conse¬ 
quences  in  some  cases  may  be  more  serious  and  lasting  than  the 
punishment  But  in  no  proper  sense  of  the  word  can  they  be 
accounted  punishment,  or  a  part  of  the  punishment  The  inci¬ 
dental  evils  are  accidents  of  relation.  Punishments  are  judicial 
pains  which  connect  themselves  with  the  crime  in  the  person  of 
the  criminal.  He  is  the  only  person  known  to  the  law,  and  the 
only  person,  therefore,  that  can  be  subject  of  judicial  treatment. 
When  it  is  said,  “By  the  sin  of  one  man  condemnation  passed 
upon  all,  ”  it  is  not  meant  that  the  all  were  accounted  guilty  and 
adjudged  to  punishment,  which  would,  as  we  have  seen,  be  a 
violation  of  justice,  but  rather  it  is  meant  that  as  a  consequence 
of  their  relation  they  became  affected  with  evil,  which  would 
inevitably  work  to  their  ruin ;  and  because  this  would  be  unjust 
it  is  immediately  added,  “so  by  the  righteousness  of  one  the 
free  gift  passed  upon  all  unto  justification  of  life” — the  evils 
that  ensued  from  the  natural  relation  of  innocent  seed  to  their 
natural  head  were  counterworked  by  their  relation  to  their 

gracious  Head.  If  the  passage  is  to  be  regarded  as  declaring  a 

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Studies  in  Theology. 


judicial  act  at  all  it  was  not,  on  the  one  part,  the  act  of  con¬ 
demnation  to  punishment  and  on  the  other  side  the  act  of  a 
judicial  pardon,  for  there  was  no  possible  guilt  in  the  case ; 
which  fact  rendered  such  judicial  acts  impossible.  The  declara¬ 
tion  is  of  beings  potential,  and  is  equivalent  to  the  statement 
that  the  condemnation  of  Adam — which  in  effect  was  the  con¬ 
demnation  of  his  unborn  descendants  to  that  forfeiture  of  life 
which  would  result  from  his  death — was  reversed  by  redemp¬ 
tion,  by  which  they  were  permitted  to  live,  and  without  impu¬ 
tation  of  blame  for  the  fallen  nature  which  they  inherited. 

Calvinistic  writers  have  a  way  of  defining  punishment  which 
is  false  and  misleading,  and  which  is  made  to  serve  a  sophis¬ 
tical  purpose.  There  is  but  one  true  idea  of  punishment  The 
word  is  perfectly  definite.  All  just  use  of  the  word  must 
recognize  this  exclusive  and  exhaustive  meaning.  It  signifies 
penalty,  that  suffering  which  law  attaches  to  its  violation, 
and  which  is  due  and  is  adjudged  to  the  transgressor  and  none 
other. 

The  essential  and  only  possible  ground  of  liability  is  that  the 
person  so  liable  be  a  transgressor,  in  the  meaning  of  the  law. 
It  can  never  arise  without  this,  and  never  go  beyond  it.  These 
are  its  absolute  and  only  conditions.  The  sufferings  which  are 
accidents  of  the  law’s  infliction  are  not  a  part  of  it,  are  not 
known  to  it  When  it  is  said,  therefore,  that  punishment  is 
any  suffering  to  which  a  person  is  liable  because  of  sin  the 
definition  is  made  to  serve  a  misleading  idea.  If  it  meant  any 
suffering  to  which  a  'person  is  judicially  liable  for  his  sin  it 
would  be  true.  But  it  is  used  in  a  much  broader  sense,  and  a 
meaning  is  adroitly  incorporated  which  hides  a  dangerous  fal¬ 
lacy.  The  word  liable  is  the  equivocal  factor.  In  law  it  means 
amenable,  or  subject  to,  because  of  the  relation  of  the  party  to 
law.  It  is  employed,  however,  in  the  loose  sense  of  what  we 

are  exposed  to,  or  subjects  of,  without  respect  to  our  relations 
6 


Punishment. 


185 


to  law ;  and  so  all  the  evils  to  which  we  are  exposed,  which 
result  from  violation  of  law  by  another,  is  called  punishment. 
Adam  sinned,  and  he  was  adjudged  to  death.  This  was  pun¬ 
ishment  to  which  he  was  liable  for  his  sin.  We  as  his  descend¬ 
ants  are  subject  to  death,  because  we  inherit  his  fallen  fortunes. 
Since  this  liability,  in  the  sense  of  “  subjection  to,”  comes  to  us 
by  our  relation  to  him,  it  is  declared  that  we  incur  the  penalty 
even  as  he  did,  since  it  results  from  a  judicial  process.  This  is 
clearly  not  true.  Our  death  results  to  us  as  an  accident  of  his 
sin  and  our  relation  to  him,  and  is  not  something  to  which  we 
are  adjudged  as  violators  of  law.  The  only  party  known  to  the 
law  and  punished  by  it  is  the  transgressor.  Others  inherit 
calamities  through  his  sin,  but  they  are  not  punishments,  as  the 
law  does  not  know  them. 

But  am  I  asked,  How,  then,  do  I  account  for  the  death  of 
infants,  as  punishment  ?  I  answer,  I  deny  that  to  them  it  is 
punishment  But  it  is  said  that  I  have  already  admitted  it  to 
be  punishment,  and  how,  then,  can  I  now  repudiate  the  admis¬ 
sion? 

The  question  is  perfectly  fair,  and  I  am  in  duty  bound  to 
furnish  an  answer. 

My  position  is  this :  Adam,  the  first  man,  was  placed  under 
specific  law  to  God,  inclusive  of  all  moral  duty ;  he  was  also 
placed  under  a  positive  law,  which  was  a  test  law.  This  posi¬ 
tive  law  read,  “  Of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it :  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof 
thou  shalt  surely  die.”  How,  either  that  declaration  was  a  mere 
prophecy  or  it  was  the  assertion  of  a  penalty.  I  take  the  latter 
view.  It  was  penalty.  But  of  which  law  ?  The  law  concern¬ 
ing  the  tree.  It  is  specific — its  terms  are  express.  Do  you  wish 
to  widen  it?  Upon  what  authority?  Do  you  answer,  Upon 
the  authority  of  other  interpretative  passages  ?  What  passages  ? 

“The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.”  “Wherefore,  as  by  one 
13  • 


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man  sin  entered  into  tlie  world,  and  .  .  .  death  passed  upon  all 
men,  for  that  all  have  sinned :  for  until  the  law,”  etc.  These 
are  certainly  the  crucial  passages.  We  propose  to  examine 
each  and  find  its  exact  meaning.  They  are  introduced  to  prove 
that  the  temporal  death  of  each  human  being  is  the  punishment 
of  his  sin.  This  we  deny. 

Before  the  examination  it  is  proper  we  should  state  our 
view,  that  the  interpretation  may  be  in  the  light  of  the  two 
theories. 

We  hold  that  Adam’s  sin  against  his  law  involved  him  in  the 
threatened  penalty,  which  certainly  included  temporal  death. 
It  is  therefore  true  that  death  was  by  sin — temporal  death 
by  sin,  as  to  the  tree.  That  transaction  terminated  the  first 
covenant.  It  was  the  end  of  the  economy.  The  law  given  to 
the  innocent  Adam,  whose  violation  was  death,  was  broken, 
and  under  that  economy  nothing  more  remained  but  the  execu¬ 
tion  of  the  penalty.  Observe,  the  terms  are  few  and  simple  and 
express:  11  Of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  thou 
shalt  not  eat  of  it  ” — that  is  the  command  part  and  the  whole 
of  it;  “  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely 
die.”  No  more  can  be  put  into  it.  The  disobedience  having 
transpired,  the  subject  must  die,  and  the  covenant  has  reached 
its  end.  The  transaction  fully  accounts  for  the  introduction  of 
sin  and  the  introduction  of  death.  But  it  accounts  for  nothing 
beyond  Adam.  The  fact  of  Adam’s  posterity,  and  of  their  cir¬ 
cumstances,  does  not  enter  into  that  transaction  at  all  except 
as  rendered  impossible  by  it.  The  completion  of  that  covenant 
in  the  execution  of  penalty  on  the  transgressor  was  the  extinc¬ 
tion  of  the  race. 

Now,  to  account  for  the  existence  of  the  race,  and  any  and  all 
the  circumstances  connected  therewith,  we  shall  come  to  another 
covenant,  or  economy,  or  arrangement,  or  new  departure,  and  all 
subsequent  events  must  be  explained  under  the  provisions  of  the 


Punishment. 


187 


new.  The  old  is  abolished — has  no  more  force;  is  nothing; 
explains  nothing.  Parts  of  it  may  be  carried  over  and  incor¬ 
porated  in  the  new,  but  the  new  must  interpret  everything. 
Nothing  remains  by  virtue  of  the  former  covenant,  however  it 
may  resemble  it.  It  is  analogous  to  a  contract  or  form  of  gov¬ 
ernment  which  is  superseded  by  a  later,  which  may  or  may 
not  continue  parts  of  the  old,  but  which  alone,  in  its  new  con¬ 
stitution,  interprets  and  is  responsible  for  what  exists  under  it. 

The  new  covenant  had  respect  to  an  Adam  already  under 
sentence  of  death.  Now  the  question  is :  What  did  it  propose 
to  do  ?  What  did  it  do  ?  What  has  arisen  under  it  ?  What 
will  arise  under  it?  As  the  old  covenant  vanished  away 
everything  must  be  explained  under  the  new. 

As  I  understand  it,  the  new  departure  was  a  covenant  or 
arrangement  by  which  the  death  impending  over  the  guilty 
Adam  was  not  removed,  but  suspended.  The  new  economy 
did  not  abolish  it,  but  carried  it  up,  so  that  the  penalty  of  the 
first  covenant  was  incorporated  into  the  second — as  to  the 
Adam  as  penalty ,  as  to  his  seed  as  inheritance.  The  new  cove¬ 
nant  provided  that  the  death-doomed  Adam  should  be  permitted 
to  beget  children  in  his  likeness,  and  that  they  should  come 
into  the  inheritance  of  his  mortality  as  well  as  the  inheritance 
of  his  nature — his  disordered  affections.  Thus  the  death  which 
was  to  him  penalty  of  the  law  he  had  broken — and  which  de¬ 
clared  his  sin,  and  which  became  possible  to  him  because  he 
sinned — to  his  children  became  an  inheritance;  not  a  punish¬ 
ment,  not  at  all  declarative  of  their  sin.  It  was  born  of  penalty 
— just  as  shame  to  the  children  of  a  murderer  is  bom  of  his 
crime  but  is  not  penalty.  Their  death  comes  not  of  the  law 
sentence  as  to  themselves,  but  as  an  inheritance  from  a  fallen, 
but  redeemed,  ancestor,  under  a  new  and  totally  different 
economy  from  that  under  which  his  death  was  incurred. 

The  children  born  to  Adam  thus  die  not  because  they  are 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


sinners,  for  they  die  often  before  they  are  sinners.  The  new 
covenant,  as  the  old,  has  its  law  and  its  penalty,  but  neither  the 
law  nor  the  penalty  reads  as  the  old.  What  is  the  law  of  the 
new  covenant  ?  I  answer,  The  law  embraces  the  whole  moral 
law  of  God  as  in  the  former  case.  It  imposes  all  moral  duty, 
all  righteousness  of  motive,  of  affection,  of  action ;  perfect  love 
to  God,  and  perfect  love  to  man ;  unswerving  obedience. 

Is  the  subject,  fallen  and  abnormal,  able  to  keep  this  law  in 
all  its  requirements  from  its  birth  ? 

W e  answer :  It  is  not  a  law  to  infants,  but  to  adults.  Infants 
are  not  suitable  subjects  of  command;  can  neither  know  a  law, 
nor  obey  a  law,  nor  be  judged  by  a  law.  But  can  adults,  from 
the  moment  they  become  responsible,  keep  a  perfect  law?  We 
answer :  W e  cannot  tell  what,  under  grace,  a  human  being 
might  do ;  bat  we  hold  that  no  moral  law  can  be  binding 
which  is  absolutely  beyond  the  power  of  the  subject,  unless  his 
inability  has  been  guiltily  superinduced.  We  deny  that  it  is 
possible  to  predicate  oughtness  of  an  absolute  impossibility. 
Hence,  once  more,  we  hold  that  the  new  covenant  is  not  a  mere 
legal  covenant,  having  commands  and  a  penalty.  It  is  a  cove¬ 
nant  of  mercy,  in  which  provision  is  made  for  failure  ;  in  which 
faith  is  imputed  for  righteousness,  or  whose  penalty  may  be 
averted. 

What  are  its  penalties?  To  this  I  answer:  It  does  not 
reenact  or  carry  up  the  penalty  of  the  old,  as  penalty.  That 
is,  the  subjects  of  the  new  are  not  already  under  sentence  from 
the  old.  They  do  not  begin  with  penalty  incurred.  It  is  not 
natural  death ,  therefore  natural  death  is  no  part  of  it :  natural 
death  will  exist  though  its  penalty  should  be  averted.  Natural 
death  is  in  the  covenant  itself,  not  in  its  breach.  Its  penalty  is 
banishment  from  God;  just  that,  and  no  more,  and  no  less. 
When  do  we  become  liable  ?  When  we  sin,  and  do  not  repent. 
When  will  it  be  executed  ? 


Punishment. 


189 


The  point  we  make,  and  hold  to  be  of  great  importance,  is 
that  the  Adamic  law,  expressed  in  the  command  concerning 
the  tree,  and  the  penalty  attached  thereto,  are  not  the  law  and 
penalty  holding  over  his  degenerate  descendants.  They  take 
their  existence  under  a  new  law— one  wholly  moral — and  their 
liability  to  penalty  arises  upon  wholly  different  ground  facts. 

We  do  not  deny  that,  as  to  general  contents,  the  law  in  the 
two  cases  is  identical ;  but  there  is  a  specific  difference,  arising 
out  of  the  difference  in  the  circumstances  and  nature  of  the 
subject  Ideal  moral  law  can  never  prescribe  less  than  per¬ 
fection  to  its  subject.  It  is  the  standard.  In  this  respect  all 
moral  beings  are  under  the  same  law.  But  law  can  never 
oblige  its  subject  beyond  his  power.  Therefore  ideal  law  of 
perfection  can  only  bind  him  when  there  is  power  of  obedience. 
Doubtless  upon  Adam  the  whole  moral  law  laid  its  imperative, 
but  of  this  no  mention  is  made.  How  far  he  would  have  been 
able  to  realize  the  ideal  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  It  is 
revealed  to  us  that  he  was  obliged,  under  penal  sanctions,  but 
the  penalty  was  attached  to  a  specific  clause  and  a  positive,  and 
not  to  the  law  demanding  ideal  perfection.  This  clause  we 
know  he  had  the  power  to  keep,  and  hence  perceive  the  right¬ 
eousness  of  the  sentence.  Ho  man  knows  anything  further. 
The  race  is  under  the  ideal  law  :  moral  perfection  is  the  stand¬ 
ard  of  requirement;  it  can  be  nothing  else;  but  what  is  the 
penalty  of  failure,  and  when  does  the  penalty  become  due  ? 

To  these  questions  I  answer :  First,  while  ideal  perfection  is 
the  standard  of  claim  the  divine  law  never  imposes  this  as  duty 
on  fallen  beings,  and  never  threatens  penalty  upon  its  failure. 
It  is  confessedly  a  law  addressed  to  fallen  beings — beings 
crippled  in  their  nature.  It  requires  obedience  to  the  extent 
of  their  ability,  whatever  that  may  be.  It  threatens  penalty  on 
disobedience,  but  since  disobedience  may  result  from  inability, 
or  other  palliating  cause,  or  even  from  criminal  intent,  it  offers 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


pardon,  and  executes  its  penalty  on  tlie  sinner  not  until  after 
his  refusal  to  repent.  It  is  a  law  whose  penalty  is  laid  rather 
against  persistent  impenitence  than  breaches  of  its  requirements ; 
whose  claim  is  met  rather  by  repentance  and  faith,  with  evan¬ 
gelical  efforts  to  obey,  than  by  perfect  obedience.  The  penalty 
of  any  just  law  is  a  suffering  inflicted  by  justice  for  a  fault 
which  was  avoidable.  The  penalty,  therefore,  was  avoidable. 
That  was  so  under  the  first  law.  It  is  so  under  the  second. 
Natural  death  is  not  avoidable.  With  what  propriety  can  it 
be  a  penalty  ?  The  finally  saved  are  saved  from  what  ?  Sin  and 
its  penalty.  But  they  die.  Then  death  is  not  penalty.  The 
death  which  is  the  penalty  of  the  new  covenant  is  not  natural 
death,  but  soul  death — the  loss  of  the  soul.  All  the  warnings 
are  against  that  death.  All  the  promises  are  of  deliverance 
from  that  death. 

Pardon  annuls  punishment.  The  pardoned  are  not  punished. 
The  terms  are  exclusive  of  each  other.  Believers  are  pardoned, 
but  they  die.  Then  death  is  not  punishment — the  death  which 
they  die.  In  a  word,  nothing  is  plainer  than  that  evils  which 
result  to  the  race  in  consequence  of  Adam’s  sin  are  not,  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  punishments,  but  incidents  of  a  re¬ 
deemed  life  during  the  period  of  its  probation,  reaching  it  in 
part  by  inheritance,  or  coming  to  it  for  correction  and  reproof — 
admonitive  of  future  wrath.  The  evils  inherited  are  permitted 
to  reach  the  innocent  by  reason  of  their  relation  to  a  guilty  an¬ 
cestor,  under  an  economy  of  salvation.  The  evils  which  reach 
them  for  their  own  sins  may  be  of  the  nature  of  penalty,  but 
even  these  are  chiefly  admonitory.  Punishment  properly 
comes  after  trial,  and  ends  the  case. 

The  theory,  then,  which  undertakes  to  explain  our  guilt  for 

Adam’s  sin  on  the  hypothesis  of  our  coexistence  in  and  coaction 

with  him  fails — fails  because  its  postulate  is  shown  to  be  false. 

Dr.  Hodge  agrees  with  us  in  sweeping  it  away  as  a  figment  of 
6 


Punishment. 


191 


imagination ;  as  an  impossible  conception.  The  supposition  of 
the  guilt  of  the  race  in  Adam  has  no  support  in  it.  Dr.  Shedd 
declares  it  can  have  no  other  foundation.  Between  Union  and 
Princeton  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  is  shown  to  be  impossible. 
We  are  constrained  to  agree  with  this  conclusion.  Dr.  Shedd 
affirms,  what  all  rational  men  admit  to  be  true,  that  sin  and 
guilt  can  only  be  predicated  of  will — and  of  will  in  action,  or 
as  primitive  originating  cause ;  that  it  can  only  be  predicated 
of  individuals  because  of  the  relation  of  their  wills  to  its  pro¬ 
duction.  Unquestionably  he  is  right.  Dr.  Hodge  declares 
that  wre  could  not  have  personal  connection  with  Adam’s  sin 
by  coaction,  since  we  did  not  exist  at  the  time.  Unquestiona¬ 
bly  he  is  right.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable :  since  we  had 
no  connection  with  the  act  it  cannot  be  ground  of  our  guilt  or 
sin. 

I  have  not  deemed  it  pertinent  to  expose  other  dangerous 
errors  in  Dr.  Shedd’s  able  discussion ;  but  cannot  dismiss  his 
theory  without  adding  that  its  ability  is  only  surpassed  by  its 
dangerous  sophistries,  and  its  want  of  candor  in  presenting  the 
doctrine  it  antagonizes  is  only  equaled  by  the  unsoundness 
and  manifold  errors  into  which  it  has  brought  its  learned  and 
adroit  expounder. 

The  real  theory,  which  we  shall  examine,  we  designate  the 
Princeton  theory.  We  do  not  mean  that  it  is  peculiar  to 
Princeton,  but  that  it  finds  its  strong  support  in  Dr.  Hodge,  the 
theologian  of  Princeton,  as  against  Hew  England  theologians, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Danville  on  the  other.  He  constantly 
asserts  that  his  view  is  that  which  has  been  held  by  the  ortho¬ 
dox  Church  from  Augustine  down.  We  have  seen  already 
how  stoutlv  he  denies  and  resists  the  theorv  advanced  by  Dr. 
Shedd — the  theory  that  the  race  is  guilty  of  original  sin  be¬ 
cause  of  community  of  nature,  or  any  kind  of  actual  participa¬ 
tion  in  the  Adam’s  sin.  He  rejects  it  on  two  grounds:  first, 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


that  it  is  in  direct  conflict  with  the  doctrine  as  held  by  the  Church 
from  the  beginning  ;  and,  second,  as  impossible  in  fact,  and  as 
involving  many  dangerous  and  damaging  consequences.  His 
own  view  excludes  it.  Asserting  more  stoutly,  if  possible,  the 
doctrine  of  the  sin  and  guilt  of  the  race  than  they  do,  he  has  an 
entirely  different  explanation  of  it. 

It  is  this :  The  race  sinned  and  became  guilty  in  the  Adam, 
representatively,  or  imputatively ;  that  is,  the  Adam  was  the 
divinely  constituted  representative  of  the  race.  As  such  his 
act  was  imputed  to  them  as  their  act — accounted  theirs.  It 
was  not  their  act  in  any  real  sense,  but  it  was  made  theirs  by 
imputation.  They  had  no  real  participation  in  it,  but  he  who 
acted  represented  them  and  they  became  guilty  as  if  they  had 
acted  themselves.  According  to  the  theory  already  examined 
the  race  had  a  real  presence  in  Adam,  and  did  really  act  with 
him,  and  so  were  really  guilty  of  the  sin  as  their  own  sin.  The 
sin  was  theirs  in  fact,  not  by  imputation.  According  to  this 
theory  the  sin  was  not  their  own  in  the  fact,  but  by  imputa¬ 
tion.  The  theory  is  called  the  strict  imputation  theory.  It  is 
just  to  say  that  Dr.  Hodge  and  those  who  agree  with  him  do 
not  rest  the  whole  of  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  here.  They 
admit  that  it  consists  in  part  in  the  corruption  of  nature  which 
descends  from  the  Adam  to  his  posterity,  and  in  this  respect 
is  real  and  personal.  Original  sin  comprises  these  two  parts : 
first,  it  is  the  guilt  of  Adam’s  representative  act  charged  to  his 
posterity ;  second,  being  thus  found  guilty  of  sin,  by  imputa¬ 
tion,  the  posterity  are  punished  by  the  withdrawment  from 
them  of  that  original  righteousness  in  which  they  would  have 
appeared,  and  in  the  stead  thereof  endued  with  the  possession 
of  a  corrupt  and  sinful  nature ;  and  this  nature  is  their  real 
and  positive  sin. 

That  this  is  the  theory  will  appear  from  the  following  ex¬ 
tracts.  Dr.  Hodge  thus  defines  it:  “Adam,  as  the  common 
6 


Punishment. 


193 


father  of  all  men,  was  by  divine  appointment  constituted  not 
only  the  natural,  but  the  federal,  bead  or  representative  of  bis 
posterity.  Tbe  race  stood  its  probation  in  bim.  His  sin  was 
tbe  sin  of  tbe  race,  because  tbe  sin  of  its  divinely  and  right¬ 
eously  constituted  representative."  * 

Again:  “Tbe  main  point  in  tbe  analogy  between  Christ  and 
Adam,  as  presented  in  the  theology  of  tbe  Protestant  Church, 
and  as  exhibited  by  tbe  apostles,  is  that  as  in  tbe  case  of 
Christ,  bis  righteousness,  as  something  neither  done  by  us  nor 
wrought  in  us,  is  the  judicial  ground  of  oar  justification,  with 
which  inward  holiness  is  connected  as  an  invariable  conse¬ 
quence,  so  in  the  case  of  Adam,  his  offense,  something  outside 
of  ourselves,  a  peccatum  alienum ,  is  the  judicial  ground  of  the 
condemnation  of  our  race,  of  which  condemnation  spiritual 
death  or  inward  corruption  is  the  expression  and  the  conse¬ 
quence."  f 

Again:  “  He  has  insisted  that  it  was  not  our  works  or  our 
subjective  character,  but  the  blood  of  Christ,  his  propitiatory 
death,  his  righteousness,  the  righteousness  of  God,  something 
therefore  out  of  ourselves,  which  is  the  judicial  ground  of  our 
justification.  It  is  to  illustrate  the  great  fundamental  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel  that  he  refers  to  the  parallel  case  of  Adam,  and 
shows  that  antecedently  to  any  act  of  our  own,  before  any  cor¬ 
ruption  of  nature,  the  sentence  of  condemnation  passed  upon  all 
men  for  the  offense  of  one.  To  denv  this,  and  to  assert  that 
our  subjective  character  is  the  ground  of  the  sentence,  is  not 
only  to  deny  the  very  thing  which  the  apostles  asserts,  but  to 
overturn  the  whole  argument."  £ 

The  elaborate  articles  in  the  Princeton  Essays  on  Pelagian- 
ism.  Original  Sin,  and  Imputation,  as  well  as  Dr.  Hodge’s 
reviews  of  Dr.  Parks  and  Dr.  Baird,  in  the  years  1851-60,  and 

*  Princeton  Review ,  April,  1860,  p.  340. 

f  Biblical  Repertory,  1860,  p.  341.  \  P.  344. 

6 


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Dr.  Nathaniel  Taylor's  on  tlie  Divine  Government,  contain  in 
many  forms  statements  of  precisely  the  import  of  the  above 
extracts.  We  may  cite  a  few  more  brief  paragraphs. 

Dr.  Thornwell,  in  the  Southern  Presbyterian  Review*  in  his 
review  of  Dr.  Baird's  book,  holds  the  same  positions :  “  This  is 
the  point  upon  which  we  differ — not  whether  a  man  can  be 
punished  for  what  is  not  his  own,  but  whether  there  is  only  one 
way  of  a  thing  being  his  own.  If  there  is  a  just  moral  sense 
in  which  an  action  can  be  mine,  without  my  having  actually 
committed  it,  then  there  is  a  ground  upon  which  it  may  be 
righteously  imputed  to  me  without  my  being  the  cause  of  it. 
...  We  contend  that  representation  as  really  establishes  the 
relation  of  property  in  action  as  personal  causation ;  that  what 
a  man  does  by  his  agent  he  as  truly  does  as  if  he  did  it  in 
his  own  proper  person.  The  maxim  expresses  the  common 
sense  of  mankind,  qui  facit  per  alium  facit  per  se.  The  whole 
system  of  sponsorship  in  society  is  founded  upon  it,  and  no 
commonwealth  could  hang  together  for  a  single  generation  if 
the  principle  were  discarded.  This  is  the  principle  upon  which 
the  imputation  of  Adam’s  first  sin,  to  us,  proceeds.  He  was 
oar  representative;  he  was  our  head,  our  agent;  on  probation, 
not  for  himself  alone,  but  for  all  who  should  descend  from 
him  by  ordinary  generation.  There  can  be  no  question  but, 
if  he  sustained  this  relation  to  us,  we  are  implicated  in  all  that 
he  did  in  this  relation.  His  acts  are  ours,  and  we  are  as  re¬ 
sponsible  for  them  as  if  we  had  committed  them  ourselves. 
We  sinned  in  him,  and  fell  with  him  in  the  first  transgres- 
sion. 

Dr.  Thornwell  declares  that  “  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that,  independently  of  the  sovereign  appointment  of  God,  the 
character  and  conduct  of  Adam  would  have  had  any  legal 
effects  upon  the  destiny  of  his  offspring."  f 
*For  1861,  pp.  188,  189. 


6 


fP.  193. 


Punishment. 


195 


Pages  200  and  201  of  the  same  article  reiterate  and  expand 
the  same  positions.  Farther  along  he  holds  this  remarkable 
language:  “By  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sin¬ 
ners.  Either  we  are  guilty  of  that  act  or  original  corruption  is 
in  us  simply  misfortune.  In  some  way  or  other  it  is  ours, 
justly  imputable  to  us,  or  we  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  born  the 
children  of  wrath.  But  we  are  guilty ;  conscience  testifies  that 
we  are  guilty — that  our  native  corruption  is  in  us  [change  of 
ground].  But  as  we  did  not  sin  personally,  as  we  did  not  sin 
naturally,  we  must  have  sinned  vicariously.  The  only  alter¬ 
native  is — in  ourselves,  or  in  another.  Ourselves  are  out  of 
the  question.  Therefore  we  sinned  in  Adam,  and  our  history 
truly  began  before  our  birth.  Our  appearance  in  time  was  not 
an  absolute  commencement,  but  moral  relations  preceded  and 
determined  it  In  bringing  us  into  the  world  sinners  God  did 
nothing  more  than  execute  the  decree  of  his  justice;  the 
negative  agency  of  withholding  or  not  imparting  the  divine 
image  is  sufficient  to  explain  the  effect.  To  be  destitute  of  the 
image  of  God  is  to  be  in  an  unholy  state,  and  the  want  of 
original  righteousness  necessitates  positive  corruption.  But 
still  the  agency  of  God,  in  the  production  of  that  corruption,  is 
purely  punitive  and  judicial.  The  case  is  this :  The  being  to 
be  produced  is,  under  the  curse,  exposed  to  the  penalty  of  the 
law.  .  .  .  This  is  precisely  the  doctrine  of  our  stardards. 
There  is  first  guilt ;  then  the  want  of  original  righteousness ; 
and  then  corruption  of  the  whole  nature.”  * 

Xothing  could  be  more  explicit  than  these  statements,  and 
we  could  add  to  them  indefinitely  from  ancient  and  recent  ex¬ 
pounders  of  the  doctrine  of  original  sin.  They  directly  con¬ 
tradict  the  explanation  we  have  already  examined,  and  thus 
divide  the  defenders  of  the  doctrine  into  clans  mutually  destroy¬ 
ing  one  another,  each  party  declaring  that  what  the  other 

*Pp.  206-208. 


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holds  cannot  be  true.  And  they  are  unquestionably  severally 
right ! 

To  the  view  before  us  we  have  these  objections  to  offer: 
The  theory  is  that  we  are  guilty  of  Adam’s  first  sin  because  he 
acted  as  our  agent  or  representative ;  and  it  admits  that  we  did 
not  have  any  personal  connection  of  any  kind  with  the  act ;  is 
even  careful  to  state,  and  insist  upon  it,  that  we  had  no  exist¬ 
ence  at  the  time  it  occurred. 

The  words  imputation  and  representation  are  so  important,  in 
this  theory,  that  we  do  well  to  ponder  them  before  we  proceed 
with  our  exceptions. 

By  representation,  representative,  federal  head,  and  kindred 
terms,  whatever  other  meanings  may  be  attached  to  them  by 
other  minds,  as  used  by  Dr.  Hodge  and  the  school  of  which, 
because  of  his  eminence,  I  have  chosen  him  as  an  exponent,  is 
meant  that  Adam  was  appointed  to  act  for  us ;  so  that  his  act 
should  be  ours  as  really  as  if  we  acted  ourselves,  and  we  should 
be  responsible  in  the  same  degree  as  if  we  had  acted  personally. 
He  became  our  representative  by  appointment  and  sovereign 
constitution. 

By  imputation  is  meant  the  actual  ascribing  to  us  the  act, 
and  the  whole  of  its  moral  contents,  which  he  did  under  this 
constitution,  so  that  we  became  morally  related  to  it  just  as  we 
would  have  been  if  we  had  lived  and  been  the  actors  ourselves, 
just  as  the  real  actor  himself  was. 

“  That  which  is  adopted  by  Protestants  generally,  as  well 
Lutheran  as  Beformed,  and  also  by  the  great  body  of  the  Latin 
Church,  is  that  in  virtue  of  the  union,  natural  and  federal, 
between  Adam  and  his  posterity,  his  sin,  though  not  their 
act,  is  so  imputed  to  them  that  it  is  the  judicial  ground  of 
the  penalty  threatened  against  him  coming  also  upon  them. 
This  is  the  doctrine  of  immediate  imputation.”  * 

*  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  190. 


6 


Punishment. 


197 


Now,  to  this  theory  I  have  to  answer:  Given  a  God  of  jus¬ 
tice  and  truth,  the  supposition,  in  both  its  parts,  is  necessarily 
false.  It  is  impossible  that  there  should  have  been  any  such 
representation,  or  any  such  imputation. 

The  word  representation  is  confusing  here,  because  used  in 
an  exceptional  and  impossible  sense.  There  is  a  doctrine  of 
representation  that  is  admissible,  but  this  is  not  that  doctrine. 
When  we  object  to  this  doctrine  we  do  not  object  to  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  representative  responsibility,  but  only  to  a  false  and 
impossible  form,  or  rather  perversion,  of  it. 

There  is  a  true  case  in  which  one  person  may  morally  repre¬ 
sent  another;  so  that  the  whole  moral  contents  of  the  acts  of 
the  representative  may  go  over  to  the  represented,  just  as  if  he 
had  himself  committed  the  act ;  it  is  de  facto  his  act.  That  case 
is  this :  when  the  party  represented  agrees  that  the  party  repre¬ 
senting  shall  be  his  agent ;  agrees  to  be  bound  and  responsible 
in  whatever  he  does ;  but  even  in  such  a  case  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  moral  contents  of  a  specific  act  would  reach  the 
party  represented  without  a  specific  commission  to  its  perform¬ 
ance. 

There  is  a  modified  form  of  representation  when  one  party  is 
appointed  to  represent  another — a  minor  or  incompetent  person. 
Thus  parents  are  the  natural  representatives  of  their  children  ; 
guardians,  appointed  by  the  State,  the  legal  representatives  of 
their  wards.  But  in  these  cases  the  representation  can  only 
affect  the  external  interest  of  the  represented.  That  is,  the 
represented  party  can  only  be  bound,  or  made  to  suffer,  in  his 
estate,  or  his  temporal  circumstances,  by  his  representative.  No 
moral  act  of  the  agent  can  be  imputed  as  guilt  to  the  party 
represented.  The  parent  or  guardian  may  by  neglect  of  duty, 
criminal  misuse  of  his  agency,  or  ignorance,  or  even  with  the 
best  possible  motives,  injure,  in  various  ways,  and  very  se¬ 
riously,  the  child  or  ward,  in  reputation,  in  property,  in  cliarac- 


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ter,  in  well-being  ;  but  there  is  one  thing  he  never  can  do :  he 
can  never  make  the  represented  morally  responsible  for  any  of 
his  deeds ;  his  sin  can  never  become  the  sin  of  the  child  or 
ward ;  his  power  to  represent  or  act  as  agent  stops  short  of 
power  to  inculpate  in  deeds  of  guilt. 

The  doctrine  of  representation  taught  by  Dr.  Hodge  and  the 
theologians,  ancient  and  modern,  who  concur  with  him  is 
neither  of  these ;  it  is  a  form  of  representation  which  never  did 
exist,  and  never  can  until  intuitions  of  justice  are  expunged 
from  the  universe. 

The  case  supposed  by  him  is  this,  as  we  have  seen  in  numer¬ 
ous  excerpta  from  his  own  writings  and  the  writings  of  eminent 
exponents  of  the  theory:  that  one  person  was  created,  and 
placed  on  trial  under  law  in  such  form  that,  if  he  should  break 
the  law,  he  would  become  deserving  of  the  endless  wrath  and 
curse  of  his  Maker ;  and  he  was  appointed  at  the  same  time  to 
represent  his  unborn  and  nonexisting  descendants,  so  that  his 
guilty  act  should  be  laid  to  their  charge  as  if  they  had  per¬ 
formed  it  themselves,  and  they  should  become  therefor  subject 
to  the  same  wrath  and  curse  which  he  deserved  and  suffered 
even  as  they  would  be  if  they  had  personally  committed  the 
act. 

This,  it  is  assumed,  is  a  conceivable  and  real  case,  and  not 
at  all  inconsistent  with  justice  and  honor  and  truth.  On  the 
ground  of  representation  he  says  the  sin  of  the  one  is,  and 
justly,  the  sin  of  the  many — and  therefore  the  curse  is  theirs : 
the  sin  is  imputed  and  the  punishment  is  inflicted.  The  im¬ 
puted  sin  becomes  real  sin,  thus :  “  To  impute  sin,  in  scriptural 
and  theological  language,  is  to  impute  the  guilt  of  sin.  And 
by  guilt  is  meant,  not  criminality,  or  moral  ill  desert,  or  demerit, 
much  less  moral  pollution,  but  the  judicial  obligation  to  satisfy 
justice.  Hence  the  evil  consequent  on  the  imputation  is  not  an 
arbitrary  infliction ;  not  merely  a  misfortune  or  calamity,  not  a 


Punishment. 


199 


chastisement,  in  the  proper  sense  of  that  word,  but  a  punishment ; 
that  is,  an  evil  inflicted  in  the  execution  of  the  penalty  of  law  and 
for  the  satisfaction  of  justice.”*  “  The  ground  of  the  imputation 
of  Adam's  sin,  or  the  reason  why  the  penalty  of  his  sin  has  come 
upon  all  his  posterity,  is  the  union  between  us  and  Adam. 
There  could,  of  course,  be  no  propriety  in  imputing  the  sin  of 
one  man  unto  another  unless  there  were  some  connection  be¬ 
tween  them  to  explain  and  justify  such  imputation.  .  .  .  The 
union  between  Adam  and  his  posterity,  which  is  the  ground  of 
the  imputation  of  his  sin  to  them,  is  both  natural  and  federal.  ”f 

The  theory  of  the  elder  Edwards  has  a  general  resemblance 
to  this  but  really  differs  from  it,  and  in  this  is  the  leading  rep¬ 
resentative  of  a  class.  He  holds  to  a  real  oneness  of  Adam's 
posterity  with  him,  not  on  the  ground  that  the  posterity  were 
substantially  in  him,  but  on  this  ground :  they  were  divinely 
constituted  one ;  the  one  Adam  was  all  other  men,  not  sub¬ 
stantially,  but  really,  because  so  in  the  divine  mind ;  that 
therefore  the  sin  and  guilt  of  Adam  were  really  and  properly 
the  sin  and  guilt  of  each  of  his  descendants ;  they  were  morally, 
by  a  divine  constitution,  the  same  person.  This  seems  to  be  the 
view  of  several  of  the  leading  Hew  England  divines,  and,  as 
they  contend,  was  possibly  the  opinion  of  Augustine  himself, 
and  many  eminent  divines  of  intermediate  ages. 

The  point  in  which  this  differs  from  the  Princeton  school,  if 
we  can  understand  them,  is  this  :  Edwards  holds  to  the  actual 
sin  and  guilt  of  the  posterity  for  Adam’s  sin  as  one  moral 
person  with  him  by  divine  constitution — which  Hodge  denies, 
but  holds  that,  while  the  posterity  are  not  one  moral  person 
with  the  Adam,  they  are  by  a  divine  constitution  regarded  and 
treated  as  if  they  were  one.  They  did  not  really  sin  in  Adam, 
but  are  regarded  as  having  done  so.  The  difference  holds  to 
be  fundamental.  It  is,  perhaps,  however,  imaginary.  The 
*Vol.  ii,  p.  194.  f  P.196. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


objections  to  both  are  identical,  and  will  be  mainly  offered  in 
connection  with  the  Princeton  theory.  Still,  before  passing, 
let  ns  briefly  examine  this  opinion. 

The  object  is  to  explain  how  we  are  guilty  of  Adam’s  sin. 
To  do  this  it  alleges  that  his  sin  was  de  facto  our  sin,  inasmuch 
as  we  were  morally  one  person.  This  ground  of  condemnation 
is  identical  to  both.  Allowing  the  premises,  it  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted  that  the  explanation  is  complete.  If  we  were  one  with 
Adam  we  sinned  precisely  as  he  did,  and  are  justly  held. 

But  how  is  our  oneness  made  out?  Edwards  admits  that 
our  substance  did  not  exist  in  Adam,  nor,  until  six  thousand 
years  afterward,  did  our  persons. 

But  how,  then,  were  we  one?  He  answers  that  we  were 
one  by  divine  constitution;  that  is,  that  we  were  constituted 
one.  But  what  does  this  mean  ?  It  can  mean  nothing  other 
than  that  God  determined  to  regard  us  as  one  when,  in  fact, 
we  were  not  one.  To  say  that  we  became  one  when  I  was 
not  in  existence  is  to  assume  that  I  existed  when  it  is  ad¬ 
mitted  I  did  not  exist  To  say  that  we  were  one  in  the  divine 
thought  when  we  were  not  one  in  fact  is  nothing  other  than 
to  say  that  the  divine  idea  was  contrary  to  the  fact ;  that  God 
assumed  that  to  be  which  was  not !  The  only  other  meaning 
possible  is  that  the  divine  Being  determined  to  treat  us 
in  the  same  way  as  if  we  were  one;  view  the  posterity  as 
like  the  head  and  treat  us  in  the  same  manner — one  in  kind ; 
unless  it  is  contended  that  because  he  determined  to  regard  us 
as  one  we  really  did  become  so.  It  was  either  a  legal  oneness  or 
an  actual  oneness.  The  latter  it  could  not  be,  unless  it  can  be 
shown  that  to  be  and  not  to  be  are  convertible  terms. 

Could  it  be  the  former  ?  That  is,  were  we  constituted  one 

legally,  so  that  what  Adam  did  in  the  eye  of  the  law  I  did  ? 

The  difficulties  here  are  no  less  numerous  than  in  the  former 

case.  God  determined  to  view  Adam's  act  as  my  act  when  it 

%/ 


Punishment. 


201 


was  not  my  act ;  when  it  conld  not  be  my  act  unless  it  can  be 
shown  that  I  could  act  before  I  existed.  It  is  nothing  other 
than  to  charge  G-od  with  assuming  that  to  be  true  which  he 
knew  to  be  false — to  regard  me  as  one  with  Adam  when  I  was 
not  one  with  Adam. 

But  it  supposes  that  my  sin,  which  is  held  to  be  real,  is  not 
something  which  originates  with  me ;  that  is,  it  is  not  my 
sin.  It  makes  me  a  sinner,  not  because  I  have  sinned,  but  be¬ 
cause  another  man  sinned  and  by  a  divine  fiction  it  is  trans¬ 
ferred  to  me !  I  am  not  a  sinner  in  fact,  but  I  am  so  in  the 
divine  idea.  I  am  held  to  punishment  for  a  fiction  in  the 
divine  mind — or  on  no  other  ground  than  that  God  alleges, 
against  me  what  could  not  be  true,  namely,  that  I  sinned  be¬ 
fore  I  existed. 

This  theory  is  introduced,  like  the  one  we  have  already  ex¬ 
amined,  to  show  how  it  is  that  Adam's  posterity  are  guilty  of 
his  sin.  The  grand  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  doctrine,  and 
which  it  seeks  to  remove,  is  that  it  antagonizes  justice.  The 
object  is  to  relieve  that  difficulty ;  to  show  that  it  does  not  im¬ 
plicate  justice  and  possible  truth ;  to  show  that  it  is  not  neces¬ 
sarily  contradictory  and  false.  The  method  has  the  merit  of 
being  simple — plain.  It  is  relieved  of  all  physiological  en¬ 
tanglements  and  mystical  realistic  notions,  and  announces  itself 
in  a  plain  and  perfectly  intelligible  proposition  :  W e  are  guilty 
of  Adam's  sin  solely  on  the  ground  that  God  constituted  him 
by  appointment  our  representative ;  determining  to  regard  as 
our  act  whatever  he  did  and  to  treat  us  accordingly.  In  har¬ 
mony  with  this  divine  arrangement  when  Adam  sinned  God 
regarded  us  as  sinning  also,  and  views  and  treats  us  as  guilty ! 
Our  personal  depravity  is  not  a  natural  consequence  of  our  re¬ 
lation  to  Adam,  but  a  penal  infliction  upon  us  regarded  as 
sinners. 

Can  this  doctrine  be  true  ?  Does  it  harmonize  the  apparently 
14  ‘  6 


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conflicting  doctrines  of  our  hereditary  guilt  and  the  infinite 
justice  of  God?  We  have  seen  in  former  discussions  what  sin 
and  guilt  are.  Can  they  be  accounted  for  in  this  way? 

To  our  conception  this  theory  is  beset  with  precisely  the 
'  same  embarrassments  which  those  who  embrace  it  allege  against 
the  realistic  theory,  and  many  more. 

Stripped  of  all  disguises,  if  we  can  comprehend  the  import  of 
language,  it  is  simply  that  we,  who  were  not  in  the  fact  guilty 
of  Adam’s  sin,  are  made  so  by  the  divine  purpose  so  to  regard 
us.  But  this  is  an  impossibility  on  two  grounds:  First,  it  is 
impossible  that  God  should  regard  us  as  guilty  when  we  are 
not,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  God  can  hold  that  to  be  true 
which  is  not  true.  Second,  if  it  were  possible  that  he  should 
thus  confound  truth  and  falsehood  it  could  not  make  the  false¬ 
hood  true.  He  might,  if  he  were  capable  of  regarding  a  false¬ 
hood  as  a  truth,  which  is  assumed,  call  us  guilty  when  we  are 
not — and  he  might,  if  void  of  justice,  determine  to  treat  us  as 
guilty  on  the  monstrous  fiction — but  this  could  never  change 
the  facts  in  the  case.  They  would  remain  as  they  were  before. 
We  should  still  be  guiltless,  though  charged  with  guilt;  inno¬ 
cent,  though  punished.  Facts  are  facts,  and  do  not  change 
their  nature  however  they  are  viewed  by  any  mind.  If  the 
principle  should  be  allowed  that  one  person  can  be  constituted 
guilty  because  another  is,  simply  by  an  arbitrary  constitution, 
then  one  might  be  constituted  guilty  when  no  one  was  so.  Why 
not  ?  If  I  may  be  constituted  guilty  when  I  am  not  really  so, 
simply  because  God  determines  to  consider  me  so,  then  so  might 
Gabriel,  or  any  angel — or  all  angels.  The  same  principle  would 
render  allowable  that  every  being  in  the  universe  should  be 
considered  and  treated  as  guilty,  and  heaven  be  turned  into 
hell.  When  Adam  sinned  either  I  did  sin  or  I  did  not.  If  I 
did  sin,  then  I  was  there  and  acted ;  or  else  I  sinned  when  I 

had  no  being  and  did  not  act ;  but  if  I  did  not  sin,  and  God 
6 


Punishment. 


203 


assumes  that  I  did  sin,  he  assumes  what  is  not  true !  And  if 
his  assuming  that  I  sinned,  when  I  did  not,  makes  it  a  fact  that 
I  did  sin,  then  that  is  made  to  be  a  fact  which  is  not  a  fact ! — 
my  sin  is  resolved  to  be  no  fact,  but  a  fiction  in  the  divine 
mind ! 

It  is  a  fact,  admitted  and  contended  for  by  this  author,  that 
we  who  now  live  did  not  exist  until  six  thousand  years  after 
Adam’s  sin ;  and  yet  it  is  contended  that  we  are  guilty  of  that 
very  sin  as  really  as  he  is.  W e  ask,  How  ?  He  answers,  By 
the  purpose  of  God  that  we  should  be  so.  Then  it  is  a  deter¬ 
mination  of  God,  an  act  in  the  divine  mind,  by  which  we  are 
constituted  sinners ;  not  any  act  of  our  own.  For  six  thousand 
}rears  after  the  act  for  which  we  were  thus  made  sinners  we  were 
not  sinners,  for  we  were  not  at  all ;  a  certain  guilt,  then — that 
is,  our  guilt — must  have  been  borne  along  through  all  this 
period,  without  anybody  being  guilty,  which  seized  upon  us  as 
soon  as  we  came  into  being!  So  far  as  we  are  concerned  it  is 
a  created  guilt :  God  alone  is  its  immediate  and  sole  author. 

It  is  no  answer  to  this  to  reply  that  a  party  may  be  guilty 
for  what  his  representative  does ;  that  is  true  when  the  repre¬ 
sentative  really  represents  the  party;  but  here  there  was  no 
representation,  for  there  was  no  party  to  be  represented,  and 
the  representative  represented  no  will  but  his  own ;  it  is  not 
even  pretended  that  he  did,  for  it  is  conceded  there  was  no 
other  will.  If  my  will  concur  with  another  in  act  it  is  morally 
my  act  as  much  as  his ;  but  if  he  represent  not  my  will  it  is  no 
more  my  act  than  it  is  that  of  God  himself.  The  principle  that 
would  allow  that  Adam  should  be  my  representative,  so  that 
I  should  be  held  by  his  act  without  my  having  any  concur¬ 
rence  of  will  in  the  case,  would  allow  that  Satan  himself  should 
be  my  representative.  If  it  could  be  made  just,  simply  by  ap¬ 
pointment,  in  the  one  case  it  could  on  the  same  ground  in  the 
other.  God  could  just  as  well  seize  upon  any  other  sinner  that 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


ever  lived  and  make  my  soul  answerable  for  his  crimes !  Why 
not  ?  But  is  not  this  shocking  to  think  of  ?  This  whole  idea 
of  transferable  sin  and  guilt  by  mere  arbitrary  will,  or  consti¬ 
tution,  is  inadmissible  in  every  form  in  which  it  can  be  stated. 
In  ordinary  cases,  in  which  it  stands  naked  before  the  mind — 
divested  of  the  haze  which  is  thrown  around  all  theological 
questions — common  sense  at  once  and  inexorably  rejects  it. 
A  murder  is  committed  of  the  most  vile  and  atrocious  kind. 
A  hundred  years  afterward  a  child  is  bom,  a  lineal  descendant 
of  the  murderer,  it  may  be.  Could  that  child  be  held  guilty  of 
the  murder  ?  Suppose  God  shoud  determine  so  to  regard  and 
treat  him,  would  it  make  him  so  ? — or  does  the  mind  shrink 
from  the  supposition  with  horror  ?  But  in  what  one  particular 
does  this  case  differ  from  the  case  before  us  ?  Adam  commits 
a  heinous  sin.  Six  thousand  years  afterward  a  child  is  born, 
and  God  lays  the  sin  upon  him  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
he  determines  so  to  regard  him !  Truly  this  would  be  con¬ 
verting  the  government  of  God  into  a  system  of  cruelty 
which  might  well  cover  the  universe  with  terror  and  endless 
dismay. 

It  is  said  that,  should  God  so  determine,  it  would  become 
just,  since  his  will  is  the  standard  of  right  We  answer,  No  ; 
justice  is  not  something  which  is  subject  to  caprice,  but  is  eter¬ 
nal  and  immutable.  The  terms  are  incompatible,  that  a  God 
of  infinite  truth  should  assume  that  to  be  true  which  is  not 
true,  namely,  that  there  is  guilt  where  there  is  no  guilt ;  or  that 
a  God  of  infinite  justice  should,  upon  a  fiction,  treat  as  guilty  a 
party  who  is  not  guilty. 

This  author  denies  the  possibility  of  guilt  because  of  hered¬ 
itary  depravity;  that  is,  that  our  guilt  arises  from  the  fact 
that  we  are  corrupt  by  nature.  This,  he  says,  is  not  to  be  ad¬ 
mitted,  because  it  would  make  us  guilty  without  having  had  a 

probation,  which  would  be  a  great  injustice.  Speaking  of  the 
6 


Punishment. 


205 


theory  of  Placaeus,  he  says:  “The  meaning  of  Placaeus  was 
not  that  Adam's  sin  is  imputed  to  us,  but  that  on  account  of 
the  inherent  corruption  derived  from  him  we  are  regarded  as 
being  as  deserving  of  death  as  he  was.  Imputation,  therefore, 
is  not  the  judicial  ground  of  corruption,  but  corruption  is  the 
ground  of  guilt.”  This  is  the  ground  of  Placaeus :  that  we  are 
accounted  guilty  because  corrupt.  To  this  Dr.  Hodge  objects 
“  that  it  denies  any  probation  to  the  race.  They  come  into 
the  world  under  the  burden  of  spiritual  death,  infected  with  a 
deadly  spiritual  malady  by  a  sovereign,  arbitrary  infliction. 
To  put  a  man  to  death  on  account  of  a  righteous  judicial  sen¬ 
tence  is  one  thing.  To  put  him  to  death  without  any  offense 
or  sentence  is  another  thing.  According  to  Placaeus,  men 
being  born  in  sin,  and  having  no  probation  in  Adam,  are  con¬ 
demned  without  trial  or  offense.”  * 

This  theory  involves  such  consequences  that  it  cannot  be 
admitted.  What  consequences?  Why,  that  the  individuals  are 
condemned  to  death  without  a  fair  trial  or  probation.  This 
cannot  be  admitted.  God  could  never  proceed  in  this  way. 
Before  he  condemns  he  must  give  a  fair  and  equitable  pro¬ 
bation. 

Certainly  he  is  right  in  this.  There  is  no  maxim  plainer 
than  what  is  here  assumed :  that  a  fair  and  equitable  probation 
must  precede  guilt ;  that  is,  before  a  party  is  treated  as  guilty 
he  must  have  furnished  the  proof  that  he  is  guilty.  But  how 
does  our  author  apply  his  principle  ?  Why,  thus :  Adam  was 
put  upon  probation,  and  it  was  determined  that  we  should 
have  our  probation  in  him.  He  sinned ;  therefore  we  have  had 
a  fair  trial,  and,  having  sinned,  deserve  condemnation  and  are 
condemned.  This  statement  fails  entirely  to  relieve  my  diffi¬ 
culties.  I  am  too  obtuse  to  discover  wherein  it  would  be  more 
unjust  to  condemn  me  for  inborn  depravity,  without  having  had 

*  Princeton  Review ,  I860,  p.  843. 


206 


Studies  in  Theology. 


a  probation,  than  to  condemn  me  for  a  trial  which  occurred 
six  thousand  years  before  I  was  born !  I  am  too  dull  to  per¬ 
ceive  how  I  could  undergo  a  fair  probation  so  long  before  I 
had  an  existence.  I  cannot  discover  how  Adam’s  probation 
was  my  probation,  since  I  cannot  but  believe  that  we  are  two 
persons.  It  gives  no  help  to  tell  me  that  we  are  viewed  as  one, 
since  I  know  we  are  not  one.  So  long  as  it  appears  to  my 
mind  a  dictate  of  common  sense  that  a  person  cannot  in  fact 
have  a  probation  before  he  has  existence  it  must  be  impossible 
for  me  to  conceive  how  I  had  a  probation  in  the  garden  of 
Eden.  It  is  a  direct  contradiction.  This  whole  idea  of  a  pro¬ 
bation  in  Adam  is  fallacious  and  deceptive.  It  resolves  itself 
into  this :  that  Adam  was  put  upon  trial  and  sinned ;  God  de¬ 
termined  to  treat  me  as  though  I  had  also  been  put  upon  trial 
and  had  sinned,  when  in  fact  I  was  as  pure  a  nonentity  as 
possible — and  this  is  a  fair  and  equitable  probation !  Receive 
this  who  can ! 

If  there  is  a  single  doctrine  clearly  and  explicitly  stated  in 
the  word  of  God,  and,  we  may  add,  in  the  intuitive  reason,  it 
is  that  each  man  stands  as  a  distinct  and  separate  personal¬ 
ity  in  the  eye  of  divine  law,  and  is  treated  for  what  he  is 
and  does  himself,  and  for  that  alone.  “The  son  shall  not 
bear  the  iniquity  of  the  father.”  That  proverb  shall  be 
done  away. 

There  is,  and  there  can  be,  no  guilt  without  sin.  Were 
there  no  sin  in  the  universe  there  would  be  no  guilt ;  and  there 
can  be  no  punishment  without  guilt.  Were  there  no  guilt  in 
the  universe  there  would  be  no  punishment.  And  as  there  can 
be  no  guilt  where  there  is  no  sin  there  can  be  no  guilt  in  a  per¬ 
son  who  has  not  sinned,  any  more  than  there  could  be  guilt  in 
a  universe  where  there  is  no  sin.  Each  person  is  as  much 
alone  and  isolated  as  if  there  were  no  other  being  in  existence 

and  never  could  be ;  and  so  he  must  eternally  be  viewed  by 
6 


Punishment. 


207 


the  divine  mind.  Personality  is  a  thing  which  admits  of  no 
partnership — no  transfer.  And  so  one  cannot  morally  act  for 
another — obey  or  disobey  for  him. 

The  testimony  of  God  is  most  explicit  upon  this  point : 
“The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.”  “  What  mean  ye,  that  ye 
use  this  proverb  concerning  the  land  of  Israel,  saying,  The 
fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the  children’s  teeth  are  set 
on  edge  ?  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  ye  shall  not  have  oc¬ 
casion  any  more  to  use  this  proverb  in  Israel.  Behold,  all  souls 
are  mine;  as  the  soul  of  the  father,  so  also  the  soul  of  the  son 
is  mine;  the  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.” 

If  the  sin  of  Adam  be  my  sin  how  did  it  become  mine  ?  The 
answer  is :  By  a  purpose  of  God  that  it  should  so  be,  and  in 
no  other  way ;  it  is  ascribed  to  mere  sovereignty.  Then  was 
there  ever  a  time  when  I  had  power  to  prevent  my  sin  ?  It  is 
admitted  that  there  was  not.  Then  my  sin,  as  my  sin,  is  of 
necessity.  By  what  necessity?  By  the  necessity  of  God’s 
appointment.  That  is,  as  my  sin  it  has  no  cause  but  God — 
he  is  its  Author.  Is  he  displeased  with  me  on  account  of  it? 
Then  he  is  displeased  with  me  for  being  what  I  never  had  the 
power  to  avoid  being,  and  for  being  what  he  alone  caused  me 
to  be  by  his  own  sovereign  appointment !  Will  he  punish  me 
for  being  thus?  Then  he  will  punish  me  for  being  what  he 
determined  I  should  be,  and  for  being  what  I  am  only  by 
means  of  his  purpose  that  I  should  so  be.  That  is,  he  will 
account  me  deserving  to  go  to  hell  throughout  eternity,  not  for 
anything  I  ever  did,  or  could  have  prevented,  not  for  anything 
I  ever  was  in  myself,  but  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  de¬ 
termined  I  should  be  so  accounted  and  so  punished !  If  ever 
there  was  a  travesty  of  all  ideas  of  justice  to  exceed  this  it 
has  not  fallen  in  the  range  of  my  observation.  If  words  could 
be  arranged  to  express  the  concept  of  utter  malignity — mere 
power  and  unmixed  cruelty — I  confess  to  a  total  inability  to 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


conceive  the  form  of  the  sentences.  Every  instinct  and  intui¬ 
tion  of  humanity  stands  aghast  at  the  dreadful  intimation, 
and  if  it  could  be  accepted  revolt  would  be  as  universal  as 
reason  and  conscience.  It  gives  sin  its  habitat  in  God,  and 
makes  innocent  and  unoffending  men  its  prey,  and  not  its 
author. 

To  avoid  the  absurdity  of  imputing  ill  desert  it  deprives  sin 
and  guilt  and  punishment  of  their  meaning;  making  sin,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  something  which  can  attach  to  a  man  without 
any  action  of  his,  and  guilt  to  mean,  not  culpability,  unworthi¬ 
ness — desert  of  blame,  and  so  of  punishment — but  liability  to 
be  punished  without  respect  to  desert,  and  giving  to  punish¬ 
ment,  not  the  idea  of  suffering  inflicted  in  the  interests  of  jus¬ 
tice,  but  suffering  inflicted  against  justice  upon  the  unoffending. 
The  persons  charged  with  Adam’s  sin  are  not  charged  to  have 
committed  sin — not  charged  to  be  ill  deserving  on  account  of  it 
— but  are  held  to  be  punished,  made  to  suffer,  without  having 
committed  it  and  without  any  personal  demerit !  That  is,  to 
suffer  eternal  wrath  because  God  chooses  to  inflict  it  upon 
them  for  the  reason  that  Adam,  whom  they  never  knew,  trans¬ 
gressed.  The  words  sin,  guilt,  and  punishment  mean  nothing, 
or  mean  precisely  the  opposite  of  their  real  meaning,  in  this 
theory. 

But,  conscious  that  this  dreadful  theory  cannot  stand,  Dr. 
Hodge  buttresses  his  position  with  another  hypothesis  still  more 
revolting :  we  are  guilty  of  original  sin  because  we  are  depraved 
by  it.  He  spends  many  pages  to  show  that  this  mediate  puta- 
tion  idea  is  unsound — un-Calvinistic ;  that  it  abandons  the 
ground  of  strict  imputationism ;  but  finally  attempts  to  steal  it 
in  unobserved  and  make  it  do  service.  He  says  the  race  were 
charged  with  the  guilt  of  Adam’s  act — this  is  their  real  original 
sin ;  and  thus  being  guilty  they  are  punished  with  depravity ; 
and  thus  being  depraved  they  are  made  guilty  on  account  of 


Punishment. 


209 


their  depravity.  That  is,  being  unborn  they  are  charged  with 
having  sinned;  God  is  displeased  with  them,  and  withdraws 
from  them  as  a  punishment ;  the  effect  of  God’s  withdrawal  is 
that  they  are  depraved :  they  ought  not  to  have  been  so  born ; 
their  depravity  is  wrong  and  sin ;  and,  since  it  is  their  depravity 
and  sin,  they  deserve  to  be  punished  for  it  and  are  liable  to 
eternal  death. 

What  ingenuity  of  malignity  is  here!  First,  unborn  souls 
are  guilty  of  what  another  man  did.  Second,  they  are  pun¬ 
ished  with  personal  depravity  on  account  of  that  guilt  for 
another  man’s  sin.  Third,  they  are  punished  in  hell  forever — 
first,  for  the  sin  of  another  before  they  were  born,  and  then  for 
already  having  been  punished  with  depravity.  Damned  for  a 
sin  that  was  not  theirs,  and  for  having  been  unjustly  punished 
with  depravity ! 

The  nest  method  adopted  is  this :  Denying  the  position  that 
we  were  present  with  Adam,  and  so  parties  to  his  sin  and  guilt, 
and  denying  the  theory  that  we  are  guilty  by  having  his  act 
charged  against  us  as  our  own,  which  in  fact  it  was  not,  it  still 
asserts  that  we  are  by  nature  sinners,  and  guilty  in  Adam’s  sin, 
and  deserving  of  death  on  that  account — and  for  this  reason  : 
that  his  sin  corrupted  his  whole  nature  and  brought  it  into  a 
state  of  disconformity  to  God’s  law,  and  that  we — descending 
from  him  in  the  way  of  natural  generation — have  propagated  in 
us  the  same  corrupted  nature,  which  is  guilty  and  deserving  of 
death.  Thus  it  is  that  we  are  justly  held. 

The  theory  has  two  parts :  First,  that  we  are  naturally  de¬ 
praved  ;  second,  that  this  is  to  us  sin,  ground  of  guilt  and  pun¬ 
ishment  The  first  part  has  been  already  allowed  and  fully 
discussed ;  the  second  part  is  that  which  now  comes  under  our 
notice. 

Among  those  who  hold  this  theory  there  are  two  methods  of 
accounting  for  what  is  held  to  be  our  guilty  depravity.  First, 


210 


Studies  is  Theology. 


it  is  alleged  that  our  depravity  is  a  penal  infliction  for  Adam’s 
personal  sin,  both  upon  himself  and  his  posterity,  on  this  wise : 
Having  sinned,  God  withdrew  from  him,  as  an  indication  of 
displeasure,  and  this  withdrawal  left  his  nature  wholly  averse 
to  all  good,  and  wholly  inclined  to  all  evil ;  and  regarding  his 
posterity  as  also  guilty  God  likewise  withdrew  from  them,  and 
thus  subjected  them  to  the  same  utter  ruin.  And  this  depravity 
is  held  to  be  the  sin  of  all  who  suffer  it.  The  second  view  is 
that  depravity  is  a  natural  effect  of  sin,  which  is  propagated  by 
natural  generation — on  the  principle  that  like  begets  like — and 
yet  that,  inasmuch  as  it  is  disconformity  to  law,  it  is  really  sin, 
and  chargeable  as  such  against  those  in  whom  it  is  found  with¬ 
out  respect  to  the  means  by  which  it  exists. 

The  former  of  these  views  is  held  by  the  Princeton  divines, 
but  they  are  very  careful  to  state  that  the  sin  of  inherited  cor¬ 
ruption  is  not  only  not  to  be  considered  the  sole  ground  of  our 
guilt,  but  secondary ;  the  primary  and  immediate  ground  being 
that  we  are  guilty  for  Adam’s  sin,  and  this  is  the  penal  effect 
of  it. 

To  this  we  especially  object :  That  it  assumes  our  depravity 
to  be  a  punishment — something  that  is  inflicted  upon  us  imme¬ 
diately  by  God,  and  that,  as  we  have  already  seen,  without  any 
fault  of  our  own,  and  upon  an  unrighteous  legal  fiction — and 
then  it  charges  upon  us  that  punishment  as  our  sin !  God 
originates  our  depravity,  by  punitively  withdrawing  from  us, 
for  no  other  cause  than  the  false  assumption  that  we  deserve 
to  be  forsaken  for  what  another  man  did  thousands  of  years 
before  we  were  born ;  and  then  holds  us  to  be  guilty  because  he 
has  already  inflicted  upon  us  the  greatest  possible  calamity,  the 
withdrawal  of  his  own  presence ;  inevitably  plunging  us  into 
all  manner  of  evil.  And  this  is  the  vindication  of  the  divine 
justice !  Two  wrongs  of  inconceivable  magnitude  make  an  im¬ 
maculate  and  infinite  right!  Punishment  for  another  man’s 
6 


Punishment. 


211 


sin,  and  then  punishment  for  being  punished,  is  the  climax  of 
justice !  Surely  this  is  strange  doctrine.  It  is,  indeed,  nothing 
else  but  making  God  the  author  of  sin,  in  the  most  objection¬ 
able  manner ;  for  if  the  depravity  is  punitively  inflicted  it  mat¬ 
ters  nothing  in  what  it  consists,  whether  the  influence  of  a  phys¬ 
ical  substance  or  the  privation  of  a  moral  element ;  and,  if  the 
depravity  be  sin,  is  not  he  who  inflicts  it  its  only  and  imme¬ 
diate  author  ?  If  not,  whence  comes  it  ?  And  will  it  be  pre¬ 
tended  that  justice  can  allow  that  God,  by  a  sovereign  constitu¬ 
tion  or  arbitrary  action,  can  first  inflict  sin  upon  a  creature  of 
his  own  formation  and  then  punish  him  for  being  as  he  makes 
him  ?  Allow  this,  and  then  conceive,  if  it  be  possible,  anything 
that  would  be  injustice.  If  this  might  be,  then  what  could  not 
be  ?  If  this  strikes  not  down  the  idea  of  justice  entirely,  I,  for 
one,  know  not  what  could. 

The  other  view  is  that  depravity  is  naturally  engendered; 
not  a  punishment  but  the  result  of  a  natural  law ;  that,  never¬ 
theless,  it  is  sin,  and  all  to  whom  it  comes  are  guilty  and  de¬ 
serving  of  punishment  on  account  of  it.  This  view  denies  the 
charge  of  Adam’s  personal  sin  upon  his  posterity.  That  was 
his  own.  Our  depravity  is  our  own,  and  it  is  our  sin.  This  is 
by  far  the  nearest  approach  to  a  vindication  of  the  natural 
guiltiness  of  man.  It  has  the  semblance  of  truth.  But  even 
this  vanishes  when  analyzed  and  tested. 

Admitted  that  we  are  depraved,  that  our  depravity  has  its 
root  in  Adam’s  sin,  that  it  is  disconformity  of  our  nature  to 
God’s  law;  does  it  therefore  follow  that  it  is  sin-guilt?  Our 
sin?  Our  guilt? 

How  came  we  by  this  depravity?  It  was  caused.  Who 
caused  it  ?  Did  God,  by  punitive  infliction,  or  Adam,  by  nat¬ 
ural  generation  ?  It  is  admitted  by  all  that  we  did  not.  W e 
suffer  it ;  it  is  inexorably  thrust  upon  us ;  as  much  born  with 
us  as  our  bones  and  muscles — the  color  of  our  skin  or  the 


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fashion  of  our  members.  Is  there  blame  ?  Where  ?  Where 
does  blame  always  attach?  To  effect  or  to  cause?  To  him 
who  suffers  or  to  him  who  causes  misery?  We  have  already 
seen  how  impossible  it  is  that  God  should  hold  one  man  guilty 
■  of  another’s  sin ;  but  is  it  more  possible  that  he  should  charge 
guilt  upon  one  man  for  the  effect  of  another’s  sin  ? 

It  is,  further,  an  insuperable  objection  to  this  theory  that  it 
makes  sin  and  guilt  physical;  an  objective  something  commu¬ 
nicated  in  generation — a  corruption  of  blood  or  taint  of  essence 
given  either  of  God  by  immediate  agency  in  the  moment  of 
generation,  a  created  substance,  or  given  by  the  natural  father 
to  what  is  begotten  of  him — or  the  absence  of  some  property 
not  given.  In  either  case  a  physical  fact.  But  upon  what 
principle  can  a  creature  be  held  guilty  either  for  what  is  given 
•or  for  what  is  withheld  in  its  generation  ?  It  may  be  defect¬ 
ive,  but  it  cannot  be  blameworthy  for  a  defectiveness  thus  en¬ 
tailed.  Is  it  possible  to  human  reason  to  accept  the  proposition 
that  an  infant  just  born  can  by  any  possibility  have  at  that 
moment  a  quality  which  would  render  it  just  in  God  to  over¬ 
whelm  it  with  his  wrath  to  all  eternity? 

The  theory  misconceives  of  the  only  possible  ground  of  sin 
and  guilt  as  enunciated  both  in  the  intuitive  reason  and  in  rev¬ 
elation.  All  sin  has  its  root  in  will  and  in  the  wrong  actions 
of  will.  It  can  be  predicated  of  nothing  else.  And  this  is 
really  and  constantly  admitted  by  those  who  formally  deny  it. 
They  insist  that  depravity  is  sin  because  it  is  the  effect  of  sin, 
tending  to  other  sin.  That  is,  they  trace  it  back  to  an  act  of 
will,  without  which  they  allow  it  could  not  exist,  showing  that 
they  hold  finally  that  the  root  of  sin  is  in  the  will.  But  the 
root  of  sin  is  in  the  will  which  acts,  and  not  in  some  other  alien 
will.  But  who  can  pretend  that  such  act  of  will  has  transpired 
in  an  infant  just  born  ?  The  argument  on  this  point  has  been 

given  in  the  examination  of  Professor  Shedd’s  theory.  Sin 
6 


Punishment. 


213 


and  its  effects  are  radically  different  ideas,  and  tlie  one  can 
never  be  put  for  the  other.  The  effect  may  determine  the 
magnitude  of  the  sin  but  is  not  the  sin  itself.  For  the  elabora¬ 
tion  of  this  point  refer  to  the  discussion  of  the  nature  of  sin. 
It  is  conceivable  how  depravity  may  be  engendered,  but  sin 
never.  Having  its  source  in  a  person,  a  will,  it  cannot  come  to 
him  ab  extra.  No  mind  ever  did,  or  ever  can,  conceive  of  sin 
as  a  physical  quality — a  property  of  substance,  whether  mate¬ 
rial  or  immaterial.  Men  think  they  so  conceive  of  it,  but  they 
do  not.  A  closer  scrutiny  of  their  own  ideas  would  show  them 
that  finally  they  mean  by  sin  a  quality  of  the  action  of  will.  It 
is  something  done.  The  person  does  it  and  he  is  guilty,  but 
the  sin  is  the  something  he  does — a  thing  properly  his  own ! 

This  putting  of  the  doctrine  is  called  the  mediate  imputation 
theory,  and  is  thus  stated  by  Hr.  Hodge : 

“About  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  Amyraut, 
Cappel,  and  La  Place  (or  Placasus),  three  distinguished  profess¬ 
ors  in  the  French  Theological  School  at  Saumur,  introduced 
several  modifications  of  the  Augustinian  or  Eeformed  doctrine 
on  the  Decrees,  Election,  the  Atonement,  and  the  Imputation 
of  Adam’s  sin.  La  Place  taught  that  we  derive  a  corrupt 
nature  from  Adam,  and  that  that  corrupt  nature,  and  not 
Adam’s  sin,  is  the  ground  of  the  condemnation  which  has  come 
upon  all  mankind.  "When  it  was  objected  to  this  statement  of 
the  case  that  it  left  out  of  view  the  guilt  of  Adam’s  first  sin,  he 
answered  that  he  did  not  deny  the  imputation  of  that  sin,  but 
simply  made  it  dependent  on  our  participation  of  his  corrupted 
nature.  We  are  inherently  depraved,  and  therefore  we  are  in¬ 
volved  in  the  guilt  of  Adam’s  sin.  There  is  no  direct  or  imme¬ 
diate  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin  to  his  posterity,  but  only  an  in¬ 
direct  or  mediate  imputation  of  it,  founded  on  the  fact  that  we 
share  his  moral  character.  These  views  were  first  presented  by 
La  Place  in  a  disputation,  ‘  De  statu  hominis  lajosi  ante  gratiam ,’ 


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. . .  and  afterwards  more  elaborately  in  a  treatise,  ‘ Be  Imputatione 
primi peccati  AdamV  This  doctrine  was  formally  condemned 
by  the  National  Synod  of  France  in  1644-45  by  the  Swiss 
Chnrcbes  in  the  ‘Formula  Consensus,’  and  by  the  theologians 
of  Holland.  .  .  . 

“It  was  to  evade  the  force  of  this  decision  that  Placaeus 
proposed  the  distinction  between  mediate  and  immediate  impu¬ 
tation.  He  said  he  did  not  deny  the  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin, 
but  only  that  it  preceded  the  view  of  hereditary  corruption. 

.  .  .  Although  the  doctrine  of  mediate  imputation  was  thus 
generally  condemned,  both  by  the  Deformed  and  Lutheran 
Churches,  it  found  some  distinguished  advocates  beyond  the 
pale  of  the  French  Church.  The  younger  Vitringa,  Yenema, 
and  Stapfer,  in  his  Polemical  Theology ,  gave  it  their  sanction. 
From  the  last-named  author  it  was  adopted  by  President 
Edwards  in  one  chapter  of  his  work  on  Original  Sin.  It  appears 
there,  however,  merely  as  an  excrescence.  It  was  not  adopted 
into  his  system  so  as  to  qualify  his  theological  views  on  other 
doctrines.  Although  President  Edwards  does  clearly  commit 
himself  to  the  doctrine  of  Placaeus,  as  he  says,  ‘  that  the  evil 
dispensation  is  first,  and  the  charge  of  guilt  consequent ,’  never¬ 
theless  he  expressly  teaches  the  doctrine  of  immediate  imputa¬ 
tion  formally  and  at  length  in  other  portions  of  that  work.”  * 

It  is  not  so  much  the  history  of  the  doctrine  which  concerns 
us  as  the  doctrine  itself.  I  think  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
show  that  it  had  a  much  earlier  origin ;  but  it  is  with  the  doc¬ 
trine  itself  we  are  more  particularly  interested.  Dr.  Hodge 
alleges  against  it  several  objections.  These  are  interesting 
as  showing  the  conflict  among  the  defenders  of  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin. 

“1.  It  denies  what  the  Scriptures  assert.  The  Scriptures 
assert  that  the  sentence  of  condemnation  has  passed  upon  all 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  205-207. 


6 


Punishment. 


215 


men  for  the  sin  of  one  man.  This  the  doctrine  of  mediate 
imputation  denies,  and  affirms  that  the  ground  of  that  condem¬ 
nation  is  inherited  depravity. 

“2.  This  doctrine  denies  the  penal  character  of  hereditary 
corruption,  in  which  all  men  are  born.  .  .  . 

“3.  It  is  a  further  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  mediate  im¬ 
putation  that  it  increases  instead  of  relieving  the  difficulty  of  the 
case.  It  denies  that  a  covenant  was  made  with  Adam.  It 
denies  that  mankind  ever  had  a  probation.  It  assumes  that, 
in  view  of  a  natural  law  of  propagation,  when  Adam  lost  the 
image  of  God  and  became  sinful  his  children  inherit  his  char¬ 
acter,  and  on  the  ground  of  that  character  are  subject  to  the 
wrath  and  curse  of  God.  All  the  evils,  therefore,  which  the 
Scriptures  and  Church  doctrine  represent  as  coming  upon  the 
posterity  of  Adam  as  the  judicial  punishment  of  his  first  sin, 
the  doctrine  of  mediate  imputation  represents  as  sovereign  in¬ 
flictions,  or  mere  natural  consequences.  What  the  Scriptures 
declare  to  be  a  righteous  judgment  Placseus  makes  to  be  an 
arbitrary  dispensation. 

“4.  It  is  a  still  more  serious  objection  that  this  doctrine  de¬ 
stroys  the  parallel  between  Adam  and  Christ  on  which  the 
apostle  lays  so  much  stress  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  .  .  . 

u  5.  Perhaps,  however,  the  most  serious  objection  against  the 
doctrine  of  mediate  imputation  is  drawn  from  the  principle  on 
which  it  rests  and  the  arguments  of  its  advocates  in  its  support. 
The  great  principle  insisted  upon  in  support  of  this  doctrine  is 
that  one  man  cannot  justly  be  punished  for  the  sin  of  another.”  * 

These  are  the  objections  which  the  strict  imputationists  bring 
from  their  standpoint.  Some  of  them  are  absurd  enough,  to 
be  sure,  especially  the  last ;  but  they  suffice  to  show  that,  in 
the  judgment  of  eminent  defenders  of  the  doctrine  of  original 
sin,  it  cannot  stand  upon  this  theory.  Those  who  hold  to  this 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  210-213. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


theory  assert  that  it  cannot  stand  on  the  other,  or  any  other. 
We  think  both  are  right. 

The  doctrine  of  mediate  imputation  we  understand  to  be 
affirmed  and  defended  by  Chalmers  in  the  following  citation : 

“  To  determine  the  question,  then,  in  how  far  the  attaching 
of  demerit  to  a  sinful  nature  that  man  has  brought  with  him 
into  the  world  is  agreeable  to  the  moral  sense  of  mankind,  we 
should  inquire  how  much  or  how  little  man  requires  to  have 
within  his  view,  ere  his  moral  sense  shall  pronounce  on  the 
character  either  of  any  act  or  of  any  disposition  that  is  sub¬ 
mitted  to  his  notice.  One  may  see  a  dagger  projected  from 
behind  a  curtain,  and  in  the  firm  grasp  of  a  human  hand,  and 
stretched  with  sure  and  deadly  aim  against  the  bosom  of  an 
unconscious  sleeper ;  and,  seeing  no  more,  he  would  infer  of 
the  individual  who  held  this  mortal  weapon  that  he  was  an 
assassin,  and  that  he  deserved  the  death  of  an  assassin.  Had 
he  seen  all  he  might  have  seen  that  this  seeming  agent  of  the 
murder  which  had  just  been  perpetrated  was  in  fact  a  struggling 
and  overpowered  victim  in  the  hands  of  others ;  that  he,  the 
friend  of  the  deceased,  was  pitched  upon,  in  the  spirit  of  dia¬ 
bolical  cruelty,  as  the  unwilling  instrument  of  the  deed  which 
he  abhorred ;  that  for  this  purpose  the  fatal  knife  was  clasped 
or  fastened  to  his  hand,  and  his  voice  was  stifled  by  violence ; 
and  he  was  borne  in  deepest  silence  to  the  spot  by  the  strength 
of  others ;  and  there  was  he,  in  most  revolting  agony  of  heart, 
compelled  to  thrust  forward  his  passive,  or  rather,  his  resisting 
arm,  and  immediately  to  strike  the  exterminating  blow  into 
the  bosom  of  a  much-loved  companion.  Who  does  not  see 
that  the  moral  sense,  when  these  new  circumstances  come  into 
view,  would  immediately  amend,  or  rather  reverse,  and  that 
totally,  the  former  decision  which  it  had  passed  upon  the  sub¬ 
ject — that  he,  whom  he  deemed  the  murderer,  and  chargeable 

with  all  the  guilt  of  so  foul  an  atrocity,  it  would  most  readily 
6 


Punishment. 


217 


absolve  from  all  the  blame  and  all  the  condemnation — that  it 
would  transfer  the  charge  to  those  who  were  behind  him,  and 
pronounce  them  to  be  the  murderers — that  he  who  held  the 
dagger  and  performed  the  deed  was  innocent  of  all  its  turpi¬ 
tude,  because  the  victim  of  a  necessity  which  he  could  not 
help,  and  against  which  he  had  wrought  and  wrestled  in  vain  : 
and  thus,  ere  it  passes  such  a  sentence  as  it  feels  to  be  right¬ 
eous,  must  it  look  not  merely  to  the  act  but  to  the  intention, 
not  merely  to  the  work  of  the  hand  but  to  the  will  of  the  heart 
which  prompted  it. 

“  Now,  if  we  have  any  right  consciousness  of  our  own  moral 
feelings,  or  any  right  observation  of  the  moral  feelings  of  others, 
the  mind  of  man,  in  order  to  be  made  up  as  to  the  moral  char¬ 
acter  of  an}"  act  that  is  submitted  to  its  notice,  needs  to  know 
what  the  intention  was  that  originated  the  act,  but  needs  no 
more.  It  makes  no  inquiry  as  to  what  that  was  which  origi¬ 
nated  the  intention.*  Give  it  simply  to  understand  that  such 
is  the  intention  of  a  man  who  is  not  under  derangement,  and 
therefore  knows  what  he  is  purposing  and  what  he  is  doing ; 
and  then,  without  looking  farther,  the  moral  sense  comes  at 
once  to  its  summary  estimate  of  the  moral  character  of  that 
which  is  under  contemplation.  Let  us  see  a  man  who  has  done 
a  murderous  act,  in  the  circumstances  which  we  have  just  now 
specified,  and  we  do  not  look  upon  him  as  a  criminal,  because 
we  find  that  the  act  originated  in  the  will  of  others  and  against 
his  own  will.  Let  us  see  a  man  who  has  done  a  murderous  act, 
and  was  instigated  thereto  by  a  murderous  disposition,  and 
we  cannot  help  looking  upon  him  as  a  criminal — finding 
as  we  do  that  the  act  originated  in  his  own  will.  An  act 
against  the  will  indicates  no  demerit  on  the  part  of  him  who 

*  This  entire  line  of  argument  locates  culpability  in  the  inherited  disposition  to 
sin.  There  is  no  more  effectual  way  to  make  us  guilty  for  Adam’s  sin  than  this. 
The  disposition  was  engendered  of  that  act,  and  in  no  other  way,  and  we  are  made 
guilty  on  account  of  it. 

15 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


performed  it.  But  an  act  with,  the  will  gives  us  the  full  impres¬ 
sion  of  demerit.  The  philosopher  may  amuse  himself  with  the 
ulterior  query :  What  was  it  that  originated  the  will  ?  But 
the  peasant  has  no  metaphysics  and  no  speculation  for  enter¬ 
taining  such  a  topic ;  and  yet  he  has  just  as  fresh  and  just  as 
enlightened  a  sense  of  the  demerit  of  a  bad  action  coming  from 
a  bad  intention  as  the  most  curious  and  contemplative  inquirer 
has,  whose  restless  appetite  is  ever  carrying  him  upward 
among  the  remote  and  hidden  principles  of  the  phenomena 
that  are  around  him.  To  get  a  right  moral  estimate  of  any 
given  act  we  must  carry  our  view  up  from  the  act  of  the  hand 
to  the  disposition  of  the  heart ;  but  we  need  to  carry  it  up  no 
farther.  The  moment  that  the  disposition  is  seen  the  moral 
sense  is  correspondingly  affected,  and  rests  its  whole  estima¬ 
tion,  whether  of  merit  or  of  demerit,  not  on  the  anterior  cause 
which  gave  origin  to  the  disposition,  but  on  the  character 
which  it  now  bears,  or  the  aspect  under  which  it  is  now  seen 
and  contemplated  before  you. 

“  How  the  disposition  got  there  is  not  the  question  which  the 
moral  sense  of  man,  when  he  is  unvitiated  by  a  taste  for  specu¬ 
lation,  takes  any  concern  in.  It  is  enough  for  the  moral  sense 
that  the  disposition  is  there.  One  may  conceive  with  the 
Manichaeans  of  old  two  eternal  beings — one  of  whom  was  es¬ 
sentially  wicked  and  malignant  and  impure,  and  the  other  of 
whom  was  essentially  good  and  upright  and  compassionate  and 
holy  from  everlasting.  We  could  not  tell  how  these  opposite 
dispositions  got  there,  for  there  they  behooved  to  be  from  the 
unfathomable  depths  of  the  eternity  that  is  behind  us;  yet 
that  would  not  hinder  us  from  regarding  the  one  as  an  object 
of  moral  hatefulness  and  dislike,  and  the  other  as  an  object  of 
moral  esteem  and  moral  approbation.  It  is  enough  that  the 
dispositions  exist,  and  it  matters  not  how  they  originated,  or  if 

ever  they  had  an  origin  at  all.  And,  in  like  manner,  give  us  two 
6 


Punishment. 


219 


human  individuals — one  of  whom  is  revengeful  and  dishonest 
and  profligate  and  sensual,  and  the  other  of  whom  is  kind  and 
generous  and  honorable  and  godly — our  moral  sense,  on  the 
simple  exhibition  of  these  two  characters,  leads  us  to  regard  the 
one  as  blamable  and  the  other  as  praiseworthy — the  one  as 
rightly  the  object  of  condemnation  and  punishment,  and  the 
other  as  rightly  the  object  of  approval  and  reward.  And  in  so 
doing  it  does  not  look  so  far  back  as  to  the  primary  or  origi¬ 
nating  cause  of  the  distinction  that  obtains  between  these  two 
characters.  It  looks  so  far  back  as  to  reach  its  contemplation 
from  the  act  of  the  outer  man  to  the  disposition  of  the  inner 
man  ;  but  there  it  stops.  Give  to  its  view  a  wrong  act  origi¬ 
nating  in  a  wrong  intention,  and  it  asks  no  more  to  make  up  its 
estimate  of  the  criminality  of  what  has  been  offered  to  its 
notice.  It  troubles  not  itself  with  the  metaphysics  of  prior  and 
originating  causes  ;  and,  however  the  deed  in  question  may 
have  originated,  let  it  simply  have  emanated  from  a  concurring 
disposition  on  the  part  of  him  who  has  performed  it,  and  be  a 
deed  of  wickedness — then  does  it  conclude  that  the  man  has 
done  wickedly  and  that  he  should  be  dealt  with  accordingly. 

“We  know  very  well  what  it  is  that  stumbles  so  readily  the 
speculative  inquirer  into  this  mystery.  He  thinks  that  a  man 
born  with  a  sinful  disposition  is  bom  with  the  necessity  of  sin¬ 
ning,  and  that  to  be  under  such  a  necessity  exempts  him  from 
all  blame  and  all  imputation  of  guiltiness  in  having  sinned. 
But  so  long  as  he  is  under  this  feeling,  though  not  very  con¬ 
scious  of  the  delusion,  he  is  in  fact  confounding  two  things 
which  are  distinct  the  one  from  the  other.  He  is  confounding 
the  necessity  that  is  against  the  will  with  the  necessity  that  is 
with  the  will.  The  man  who  struggled  against  the  external 
force  that  compelled  him  to  thrust  a  dagger  into  the  bosom  of 
his  friend  was  operated  upon  by  a  necessity  that  was  against 
his  will,  and  you  exempt  him  from  all  charge  of  criminality  in 


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the  matter.  But  the  man  who  does  the  very  same  thing  at  the 
spontaneous  bidding  of  his  own  heart — whose  will  prompted 
him  to  the  act,  and  who  gave  his  consent  and  his  choice  to  this 
deed  of  enormity — this  is  the  man  whom  you  irresistibly  con¬ 
demn  and  you  irresistibly  recoil  from.  With  such  a  disposi¬ 
tion  as  he  had  it  was  perhaps  unavoidable ;  but  the  very  having 
of  such  a  disposition  makes  him  in  your  eye  a  monster  of  moral 
deformity.  If  there  was  a  kind  of  necessity  here  it  was  a  ne¬ 
cessity  of  an  essentially  different  sort  from  the  one  we  have 
just  now  specified,  and  ought  therefore  not  to  be  confounded 
with  it.  It  is  necessity  with  the  will,  and  not  against  it ;  and 
by  the  law,  both  of  God  and  man,  the  act  he  has  committed  is  a 
crime,  and  he  is  treated  as  a  criminal. 

11  The  only  necessity  which  excuses  a  man  for  doing  what  is 
evil  is  a  necessity  that  forces  him  by  an  external  violence  to  do 
it  against  the  bent  of  his  will  struggling  most  honestly  and  de¬ 
terminedly  to  resist  it.  But  if  it  be  with  the  bent  of  the  will, 
if  the  necessity  he  lies  under  of  doing  the  evil  thing  consists  in 
this,  that  his  will  is  strongly  and  determinedly  bent  upon  the 
doing  of  it — then  such  a  necessity  as  this,  so  far  from  extenu¬ 
ating  the  man’s  guiltiness,  just  aggravates  it  the  more,  and 
stamps  upon  it,  in  all  plain  moral  estimation,  a  character  of 
fuller  atrocity.  For  set  before  us  two  murderers,  and  the  one 
of  them  differing  from  the  other  in  the  keenness  and  intensity 
of  his  thirst  for  blood.  W e  have  already  evinced  to  you  how 
there  is  one  species  of  necessity  which  extinguishes  the  crimi¬ 
nality  of  the  act  altogether— even  that  necessity  which  operates 
with  violence  upon  the  muscles  of  the  body  and  overbears  the 
moral  desires  and  tendency  of  the  mind.  But  there  is  another 
species  of  necessity  which  heightens  the  criminality  of  murder 
— even  that  necessity  which  lies  in  the  taste  and  tendency  of 
the  mind  toward  this  deed  of  unnatural  violence.  And  if  of 
these  two  assassins  of  the  cave  or  of  the  highway  the  one  was 


Punishment. 


221 


pointed  out  to  ns  who  felt  the  most  uncontrollable  impulse 
toward  so  fell  a  perpetration,  and  to  whom  the  fears  and  the 
cries  and  the  agonies  of  the  trembling  victim  ministered  the 
most  savage  complacency — he  of  the  two,  even  in  spite  of  the 
greater  inward  necessity  that  lay  upon  him,  he,  in  the  breast 
of  every  plain  and  unsophisticated  man,  would  raise  the  sensa¬ 
tions  of  keenest  indignancy,  and  be  regarded  by  all  as  the  one 
whom  the  voice  of  justice  most  loudly  demanded  as  a  sacrifice 
to  the  peace  and  the  protection  of  society. 

u  It  is  enough  then  that  a  disposition  to  moral  evil  exists ;  and, 
however  it  originated,  the  disposition  in  itself,  with  all  the  evil 
acts  which  emanate  therefrom,  calls  forth,  by  the  law  of  our 
moral  nature,  a  sentiment  of  blame  or  reprobation.  It  may 
have  been  acquired  by  education  ;  or  it  may  have  been  infused 
into  us  by  the  force  of  surrounding  example ;  or  it  may  be 
the  fruit,  instead  of  the  principle,  of  many  willful  iniquities  of 
conduct ;  or,  finally,  it  may,  agreeably  to  the  doctrine  of  orig¬ 
inal  sin,  have  been  as  much  transmitted  in  the  shape  of  a  con¬ 
stitutional  bias  from  father  to  son  as  is  the  ferocity  of  a  tiger, 
or  the  industry  of  an  ant,  or  the  acidity  of  an  apple,  or  the  odor 
and  loveliness  of  a  rose.  When  we  look  to  the  beauty  of  a 
flower  we  feel  touched  and  attracted  by  the  mere  exhibition  of 
the  object;  nor  is  it  necessary  that  we  should  know  when  this 
property  sprung  into  existence.  When  we  taste  the  sourness 
of  a  particular  fruit  it  matters  not  to  the  sensation  whether  this 
unpleasant  quality  is  due  to  the  training  of  the  tree,  or  to  some 
accident  of  exposure  it  has  met  with,  or  finally  to  some  inher¬ 
ent  universal  tendency  diffused  over  the  whole  species  and 
derived  through  seeds  and  acorns  from  the  trees  of  former 
generations.  When  assailed  by  the  fury  of  some  wild,  vindic¬ 
tive  animal,  we  meet  it  with  the  same  resentment  and  inflict 
upon  it  the  same  chastisement  or  revenge,  whether  the  ma¬ 
lignant  rage  by  which  it  is  actuated  be  the  sin  of  its  nature 


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derived  to  it  from  inheritance  or  the  sin  of  its  education  derived 
to  it  from  the  perverse  influence  of  the  circumstances  by  which 
it  has  been  surrounded.  And  lastly,  when  moral  corruption 
is  offered  to  our  notice  in  the  character  of  man — when  we  see  a 
depraved  will  venting  itself  forth  in  deeds  of  depravity — when 
in  every  individual  we  meet  with  we  behold  an  ungodliness  or 
a  selfishness  or  a  deceit  or  an  impurity,  which  altogether  make 
the  moral  scenery  of  earth  so  widely  different  from  the  moral 
scenery  of  heaven,  it  positively  makes  no  difference  to  our 
feeling  of  loathsomeness  and  culpability  wherewith  we  regard 
it  whether  the  vitiating  taint  rises  anew  on  every  single  spec¬ 
imen  of  humanity,  or  whether  it  has  run  in  one  descending 
current  from  the  progenitor  of  our  race,  and  thence  spread  the 
leprosy  of  moral  evil  over  all  succeeding  generations.  The  doc¬ 
trine  of  original  sin  leaves  the  distinction  between  virtue  and  vice 
just  where  it  found  it ;  nor  does  it  affect  the  sense  of  moral  appro¬ 
bation  wherewith  we  regard  the  former,  or  the  moral  dislike 
and  feeling  of  demerit  in  which  the  latter  ought  to  be  regarded. 

“  There  is  not  a  more  effectual  way  of  bringing  this  to  the 
test  than  by  making  one  man  the  object  of  injustice  and  of 
provocation  from  another  man.  Let  a  neighbor  inflict  upon 
any  of  you  some  moral  wrong  or  moral  injury — will  not  the 
quick  and  ready  feeling  of  resentment  rise  immediately  in  your 
hearts?  Will  you  stop  to  inquire  whence  your  enemy  has  de¬ 
rived  the  malice  or  the  selfishness  under  which  you  suffer  ? 
Is  it  not  simply  enough  that  he  tramples  upon  your  rights  and 
interests,  and  does  so  willfully — is  not  this  of  itself  enough  to 
call  out  the  sudden  reaction  of  an  angry  judgment  and  a  keen 
retaliation  upon  your  part?  If  it  be  under  some  necessity 
which  operates  against  his  disposition  this  may  soften  your 
resentment.  But  if  it  be  under  that  kind  of  necessity  which 
arises  from  the  strength  of  his  disposition  to  do  you  harm — 

this,  so  far  from  softening,  would  just  whet  and  stimulate  your 
6 


Punishment. 


223 


resentment  against  him.  So  far  from  taking  it  as  an  apology, 
that  he  is  forcibly  constrained  by  the  obstinate  tendency  of  his 
will  to  injure  and  oppress  you — this  would  just  add  to  the  ex¬ 
asperation  of  your  feelings ;  and  the  more  hearty  a  good  will 
you  saw  he  had  to  hurt  or  to  traduce  or  to  defraud  you,  the 
more  in  fact  would  you  hold  him  to  be  the  culpable  subject  of 
your  most  just  and  righteous  indignation. 

“  These  remarks  may  prepare  the  way  for  all  that  man  by  his 
moral  sense  can  understand  or  go  along  with  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin  to  all  his  posterity.  We  con¬ 
fess  that  we  are  not  able  to  perceive  how  one  man  is  at  all 
responsible  for  the  personal  doings  of  another  whom  he  never 
saw,  and  who  departed  this  life  many  centuries  before  him. 
But  if  the  personal  doings  of  a  distant  ancestor  have,  in  point 
of  fact,  corrupted  his  moral  nature,  and  if  this  corruption  has 
been  transmitted  to  his  descendants — then  we  can  see  how 
these  become  responsible,  not  for  what  their  forefathers  did, 
but  for  what  they  themselves  do  under  the  corrupt  disposition 
that  they  have  received  from  their  forefathers.*  And  if  there 
be  a  guilt  attachable  to  evil  desires,  as  well  as  to  evil  doings, 
and  if  the  evil  desire  which  prompted  Adam  to  his  first  trans¬ 
gression  enter  into  the  nature  of  all  his  posterity — then  are  his 
posterity  the  objects  of  moral  blame  and  moral  aversion,  not 
on  account  of  the  transgression  which  Adam  committed,  but 
on  account  of  such  a  wrong  principle  in  their  hearts  as  would 
lead  every  one  of  them  to  the  very  same  transgression  in  the 
very  same  circumstances,  f  It  is  thus  that  Adam  has  trans- 

*  Here  it  seems  to  dawn  upon  the  mind  of  the  illustrious  author  that  the  guilt  is 
not  for  the  having  the  disposition  which  is  entailed,  but  for  the  acts  which  are 
performed  under  the  instigation  of  the  inherited  disposition ;  but  under  the  fear 
that  he  has  gone  too  far,  and  possibly  put  in  peril  his  beloved  Calvinism,  he  im¬ 
mediately  hedges. 

f  Here  he  falls  into  the  slough  of  mediate  imputation ;  our  guilt  is  not  guilt  for  his 
act,  but  guilt  for  our  own  depravity,  which  comes  to  us  as  unavoidable  consequence 
of  his  act. 


6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


mitted  a  guilt  the  same  with  his  own,  as  well  as  a  depravity 
the  same  with  his  own,  among  all  the  individuals  and  families 
of  our  species — if  not  that  each  of  them  is  liable  to  a  separate 
reckoning  on  account  of  the  offense  committed  in  the  garden 
of  Eden,  at  least  that  each  of  them  is  liable  to  a  separate  reck¬ 
oning  on  account  of  his  own  separate  and  personal  depravity 
— a  depravity  which  had  its  rise  in  the  offense  that  was  then 
and  there  committed ;  and  a  depravity  which  would  lead  in 
every  one  instance  to  the  same  offense  in  the  same  circuim 
stances  of  temptation.  According  to  this  explanation  every 
man  still  reapeth  not  what  another  soweth,  but  what  he 
soweth  himself.  Every  man  eateth  the  fruit  of  his  own  do¬ 
ings.  Every  man  beareth  the  burden  of  his  own  tainted  and 
accursed  nature.  Every  man  suffereth  for  his  own  guilt,  and 
not  for  Adam’s  guilt ;  and  if  he  is  said  to  suffer  for  Adam’s 
guilt  the  meaning  is  that  from  Adam  he  inherits  a  corruption 
which  lands  him  in  a  guilt  equal  to  that  of  Adam.* 

“  Many,  we  are  aware,  carry  the  doctrine  of  imputation  farther 
than  this,  and  make  each  of  us  liable  to  answer  at  the  bar  of 
God’s  judicature  for  Adam’s  individual  transgression.  We 
shall  only  say  of  this  view  at  present  that,  whether  it  be  scrip¬ 
tural  or  not,  we  are  very  sure  that  we  cannot  follow  it  by  any 
sense  of  morality  or  rightfulness  that  is  in  our  own  heart.”  f 
In  seeking  the  home  of  sin  Dr.  Chalmers  goes  back  thus,  as 
we  see,  of  any  action  of  will,  and  finds  it  to  consist  of  a  disposi¬ 
tion  to  wrong  or  sinful  choices.  To  the  objection  that  this 

*  This  is  an  amazing  statement,  both  for  its  contradictions  and  its  heinous 
principle.  First,  every  man  is  guilty,  not  for  what  Adam  did,  but  in  consequence  of 
what  Adam  did.  Second,  his  guilt  is  equal,  for  what  Adam  did,  to  the  guilt  of 
Adam  himself.  Adam  guilty  for  his  act,  every  man  equally  guilty  with  him  on 
account  of  the  corruption  which  flows  to  him  from  the  act. 

f  He  proceeds.  He  hesitates  at  this  idea,  as  if  it  were  more  atrocious  than 
his  own  ;  but  in  what  respect  is  it  more  objectionable  than  his  own  ?  Is  there  any 
difference  in  ethical  principle  between  imputing  guilt  to  his  posterity  for  his  indi¬ 
vidual  act — making  them  guilty  for  it — and  making  them  guilty  for  an  inherited 
consequence  of  it  ? 


Punishment. 


225 


locates  the  cause  or  origin  out  of  the  subject  he  replies  that  the 
origin  of  the  disposition  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  its 
subject.  It  is  simply  the  fact  of  it  that  makes  the  sin.  It 
makes  no  difference  how  the  subject  came  by  it ;  it  is  the  fact 
that  he  has  it  that  constitutes  him  a  sinner.  This  idea  is  put 
forward  with  great  boldness,  and  is  repeated  by  all  subsequent 
authors,  as  if  it  were  axiomatic :  as  it  is  the  ferocity  of  the  tiger 
or  the  poison  of  a  reptile  that  makes  it  worthy  of  death,  and  not 
the  manner  of  its  coming  to  possess  it,  so  it  is  the  fact  of  sin, 
and  not  the  source  or  manner  of  its  origin,  that  renders  man 
deserving  of  wrath.  A  more  vicious  fallacy  could  scarcely  be 
uttered — one  more  subversive  of  fundamental  ethical  ideas. 
The  true  maxim  is  precisely  the  reverse ;  it  is  not  a  question 
what  a  man  is  that  determines  whether  he  is  a  sinner  or  not,  but 
it  is  the  question,  How  did  he  become  what  he  is  ? — a  question 
as  to  the  origin  of  his  state.  It  is  not  a  question  as  to  whether 
he  is  evil  or  not,  but  a  question  as  to  how  he  became  evil,  as  to 
what  responsibility  he  has  in  the  premises.  If  the  evil  can  be 
traced  to  him  as  cause,  he  is  sinner  in  the  evil ;  if  it  cannot,  he 
is  not  the  sinner  but  the  sufferer  simply.  The  sinner  in  every 
possible  case  is  the  originator  of  the  sin.  To  find  the  sinner, 
therefore,  the  quest  is  for  the  cause,  not  for  the  fact  merely. 

We  have  been  at  the  pains  of  this  extended  extract  for  two 
reasons:  First,  that  it  puts  the  argument  for  a  corrupt  tendency 
and  inherited  evil  disposition  in  our  human  nature  in  a  clear  and 
unanswerable  form,  and  shows  that  it  is  not  only  universal — a 
race  fact — but  also  how  deep  and  radical  it  is,  tracing  it,  as  we 
are  convinced,  to  its  true  origin  in  the  primal  sin,  a  state  in 
which  we  are  not  involved  by  creation  but  by  defection;  a 
state  originated  by  sin  and  transmitted  as  calamity,  the  just¬ 
ice  of  which  will  be  considered  further  on.  Second,  that  we 
might  have  the  view  of  the  author  quoted  as  to  the  guilt  it  in¬ 
volves,  and  his  best  reasons  for  asserting  guilt. 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


Dr.  Chalmers’s  position  is :  (a)  that  the  evil  disposition  is  by 
inheritance.  With  this  we  find  ourselves  in  hearty  accord; 
(b)  that  it  is  ground  of  guilt.  From  this  we  dissent.  We  con¬ 
sider  it  a  great  evil,  and  one  from  which  the  soul  must  be  de¬ 
livered  in  order  to  its  final  holiness  and  happiness  ;  but  we  deny 
that  per  se,  separate  and  apart  from  the  act  of  the  individual 
will,  it  involves  sin,  on  the  general  ground  that  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  that  anything  inherited  can  involve  guilt,  and  for  many 
reasons  which  will  appear  in  the  examination  of  the  several 
theories  which  hold  on  different  grounds  the  same  general 
position. 

His  position  is  that  of  Edwards,  and  many  other  sympathiz¬ 
ing  writers,  that  the  native  disposition  to  evil  is  itself  culpable. 
At  first  view  it  has  the  appearance  of  almost  an  ethical  maxim, 
but  it  will  not  bear  the  test  of  examination.  It  seems  to  mean 
the  same  as  to  say  that  sin  and  guilt  reside  in  the  intention, 
which  is  a  true  maxim,  if  the  intention  be  to  do  that  which  is 
perceived  or  supposed  to  be  wrong,  but  in  fact  it  differs  in  toto 
from  it.  Inherited  disposition  does  not  even  involve  intention; 
in  fact,  it  of  necessity  excludes  it ;  it,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
must  be  absolutely  unintended.  Intention,  which  is  the  essen¬ 
tial  element  in  determining  an  act  or  state  to  be  culpable,  is 
wholly  wanting.  Ho  man  ever  intended  to  be  bom  with  a  dis¬ 
position  to  sin.  He  and  those  who  sympathize  with  him  assert 
that  we  need  not  go  behind  the  native  disposition,  and  in¬ 
quire  whence  it  came,  in  order  to  find  guilt — the  disposition 
itself  involves  that.  W e  assert  that,  in  order  to  make  it  ground 
of  culpability,  that  is  the  very  thing  we  must  do.  If  the  dispo¬ 
sition  is,  like  that  of  the  tiger,  an  inherited  nature,  it  has  no 
more  moral  character  than  has  the  tiger.  To  find  culpability 
we  must  go  deeper,  and  determine  whether  the  person,  as  a  free 
willing  being,  chooses  the  disposition  or  the  indulgence  of  its 
promptings ;  then  we  may  predicate  guilt ;  but  if  it  is  simply  an 


Punishment. 


227 


abnormalcy  which  exists  wholly  independent  of  him  it  can  have 
no  more  moral  quality  than  the  venom  in  a  viper.  Like  any 
other  disposition,  it  may  be  detestable ;  we  kill  the  rattlesnake 
and  the  tiger,  but  we  do  not  dream  of  imputing  guilt  or  of  pun¬ 
ishing  them.  We  incarcerate  lunatics,  but  we  do  not  accuse 
them  of  crime.  This  the  author  quoted  seems  to  recognize 
when  he  attempts  to  show  that  an  inherited  disposition  is  not 
necessitated,  but  free.  A  balder  sophism  cannot  be  conceived. 
He  makes  disposition  a  product  of  the  will.  Doubtless  he 
means  that  what  a  man  is  disposed  to  do  he  chooses  to  do — as 
if  the  terms  were  identical ;  the  disposition  would  then  be  mat¬ 
ter  of  choice.  But  that  is  precisely  what  is  denied  when  it  is 
declared  to  be  hereditary.  What  a  man,  in  the  full  possession 
of  freedom  to  the  opposite  choice,  chooses  to  do  is  the  ground 
of  ethical  quality,  and  nothing  else  is  or  can  be.  That  for  which 
he  is  responsible  is  that  of  which  he  is  free  cause,  and  never  is 
or  can  be  that  of  which  he  is  not  the  cause ;  much  less  is  it 
something  which  he  never  had  power  to  prevent,  but  which 
descends  to  him  as  a  fatal  heirloom  from  a  sinning  ancestor.  The 
depravity  which  is  inborn  and  universal  is  malady,  but  not  sin. 
It  demands  cure,  but  not  punishment.  It  renders  sin  certain, 
but  not  inevitable  under  redemption.  It  furnishes  no  excuse 
for  sin,  but  to  treat  it  as  sin  would  be  the  injustice  of  making 
misfortune  a  crime.  Personal  depravity  is  not  natal  depravity. 
Hor  is  natal  depravity  personal,  though  it  be  a  depravity  of  the 
person. 

Our  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  mediate  imputation  is  mani¬ 
fold.  The  fact  of  depravity — congenital  corruption — is  not, 
and  cannot,  with  reason,  be  disputed ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  ac¬ 
cepted  as  undoubtedly  true,  but  it  is  not  admitted  that  it  is  sin ; 
or  if  in  any  case  it  is  called  sin  it  is  with  such  accommodation 
as  to  deprive  the  word  of  its  ordinary  acceptation. 

Sin  as  guilt  it  cannot  be,  for  the  following  reasons : 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


The  matter  of  which  the  party  is  accused  is  hereditary. 
This  is  admitted  by  the  accusers ;  it  is  even  a  fundamentative 
of  their  system.  It  is  expressly  laid  in  the  charge.  But  that 
which  is  hereditary  cannot  exist  by  fault  of  him  who  inherits, 
since  it  has  its  origin  along  with  his  being,  and  necessarily, 
therefore,  before  he  could  be  at  fault.  Its  cause  is  not  in  him, 
but  out  of  him.  There  may  be  guilt  concerning  it,  but  it  can¬ 
not  be  his  guilt,  since  in  him  it  is  an  effect  descending  from  a 
cause  which  operated  in  his  production.  There  is  a  fault,  it  is 
true,  in  his  nature,  since  his  nature  ought  not  to  be  corrupt ;  but 
the  fault  that  is  in  him  is  not  by  his  fault — is  not  of  him,  as 
cause,  or  by  him,  as  agent ;  it  is  a  fault  he  suffers,  not  a  fault  he 
originates.  To  call  it  sin,  and  his  sin,  is  to  pervert  language. 
To  accuse  him  of  sin  on  account  of  it  is  to  abuse  and  misrepre¬ 
sent  him.  To  condemn  and  punish  him  for  it  is  to  add  injury 
to  misfortune  or  injustice  to  calamity.  The  whole  idea  that 
there  can  be  sin  without  personal  fault,  without  something  in 
the  cause  of  which  the  person  is  implicated,  is  against  plainest 
dictates  of  common  sense. 

It  is  important,  in  the  whole  controversy,  that  it  be  kept  in 
mind  what  sin,  guilt,  and  punishment  import ;  and  especially 
since  attempts  are  made  to  confuse  the  sense.  Whatever  mean¬ 
ing  be  attached  to  the  word  sin,  it  is,  confessedly  by  all  the  par¬ 
ties  in  the  controversy,  that  which  renders  the  subject  of  it 
liable  to  punishment.  That  is,  it  is  something  for  which  the 
person  is  justly  exposed  to  be  banished  from  the  presence  of 
God,  and  condemned  to  whatever  is  included  in  hell  torments  for 
eternity.  Thus  the  sin  and  guilt  which  are  conveyed  to  an 
unborn  child  by  its  father  in  the  act  of  its  generation  are  such 
that  it  may  justly  be  subjected  to  eternal  punishment;  are  such 
that  it  will  be  doing  it  no  wrong,  but  just  precisely  what  ought 
to  be  done,  when  it  is  given  over  to  endless  wrath.  To  the 

question,  Why,  on  what  principle,  should  it  be  so  dealt  with? 

6 


Punishment. 


229 


the  answer,  and  the  only  answer,  is,  Because  its  father  begat  it. 
Now,  he  who  can  believe  this  ceases  to  be  a  fit  subject  with 
whom  to  reason.  He  is  simply  a  lunatic ;  either  he  cannot  com¬ 
prehend  the  meaning  of  terms  or  his  moral  nature  has  become 
deprived  of  primitive  and  a  priori  instincts,  intuitions,  judg¬ 
ments. 

It  is  true  that  Adam’s  sin  did  bring  much  suffering  upon  his 
innocent  offspring,  but  the  most  serious  of  all  the  forms  of  suf¬ 
fering  it  did  not  bring — the  divine  wrath  and  exclusion  from 
his  kingdom.  It  brought  calamity,  but  it  did  not  bring  punish¬ 
ment.  Dr.  Hodge  does  not  seem  to  be  able  to  see  the  differ¬ 
ence.  I  judge  that  this  want  of  capacity  is  not  common.  That 
a  child  should  inherit  gout  or  abnormal  lusts  from  a  father,  I 
judge  most  persons  are  able  to  perceive,  is  quite  a  different 
thing  from  inheriting  hell.  That  in  the  first  case  the  child  may 
be  an  object  of  pity,  not  of  wrath,  most  people  will  be  able,  I 
must  judge,  to  think  quite  possible — even  probable.  Is  it  said, 
Yes;  but  he  made  the  constitution  under  which  such  conse¬ 
quences  arise ;  and  he  made  the  consequences  inevitable  to  the 
sin ;  and  the  consequences  show  the  evil  of  sin  and  his  dis¬ 
pleasure  against  sin,  therefore  they  are  penal  inflictions?  The 
first  part  of  the  statement  is  true ;  the  conclusion  is  false,  and 
does  not  follow  from  the  premises.  The  truth  is  he  established 
a  constitution  under  which  he  determined  to  inflict  certain  pen¬ 
alties  upon  the  transgressor  for  his  sin,  and  under  which  sin 
might  appear  by  its  injurious  effects  upon  others— either  as  it 
should  consist  in  harmful  acts  against  others  or  as  it  should  be 
occasion  of  harm  to  others. 

But  is  it  said,  What  is  the  difference,  since  they  suffer  in  both 
cases,  whether  it  be  called  punishment  or  not  ?  I  answer,  All 
the  difference  in  the  world;  since,  if  it  were  punishment,  it 
would  be  criminal  injustice,  but,  as  it  is  injury,  it  shows  the  sin 
of  its  criminal  cause  but  not  the  injustice  of  the  government. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


That  it  should  be  permitted,  even,  would  be  the  grossest  in¬ 
justice  if  it  were  not  incident  to  a  plan  which  may  bring  good 
to  the  unfortunate  sufferer  out  of  it ;  but  that  it  should  be  penal 
and  final  were  at  once  atrocious  and  diabolical. 

But  it  is  insisted  that  our  depravity  is  a  bar  against  the  favor 
of  God,  and  such  as  to  shut  us  out  from  eternal  life;  and  must 
therefore  justly  expose  us  to  eternal  death  and  displeasure. 
This  is  the  most  plausible  of  all  the  arguments  we  have  noticed, 
and  we  will  examine  it  with  the  care  it  deserves. 

Much  ingenious  writing  has  been  expended  on  this  point, 
but,  we  must  think,  without  success.  Depravity  is  a  bar  to 
communion  with  God,  and  so  to  his  favor  and  the  enjoyment 
of  eternal  life.  It  is  a  thing  with  which  he  is  displeased ;  he  is 
displeased  with  its  cause  and  with  the  effect.  It  must  be  re¬ 
moved.  We  admit  all  this,  but  does  this  imply  that  they  who 
suffer  are  guilty  and  punishable  therefor?  Nothing  of  the 
kind.  That  they  might  be  justly  barred  from  the  communion 
of  God  therefor  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  On  the  contrary,  it 
implies  this:  that — seeing  they  suffer  this  evil  without  any 
fault  of  their  own — mercy  and  grace,  not  to  say  justice,  will 
provide  a  remedy  for  it ;  will  see  that  the  impediment  of  nature 
shall  be  removed  and  these  disabled  souls  shall  be  enabled ;  the 
impediment  which  they  had  no  part  in  creating  shall  be  re¬ 
moved  out  of  the  way. 

As  we  understand  it,  it  is  thus:  The  children  of  Adam, 
without  any  fault  of  their  own,  come  into  the  world  in  an  ab¬ 
normal  condition,  with  an  inherent  tendency  to  sin,  a  natural 
estrangement  from  God,  called  native  depravity,  or  inherited 
corruption  of  nature.  This  fact  hinders  their  communion  with 
God.  It  must  be  removed,  or  they  cannot  enjoy  his  fellowship. 
God  is  displeased  with  the  existence  of  this  hindrance.  But  as 
he  knows  it  is  not  the  fault  of  the  subject  of  it;  that,  in  fact,  he 
is  an  innocent  victim  in  the  case,  injured  by  but  not  sinning  in 


Punishment. 


231 


it,  he  is  not  displeased  with  him,  not  wrathful  against  him; 
rather,  he  pities  him,  and  provides  a  remedy  for  him,  and  un¬ 
dertakes,  like  a  merciful  God  as  he  is,  to  help  him  out  of  it. 
Instead  of  cursing  and  sending  him  to  perdition  for  it  he  offers 
to  cure  him.  But  he  won’t  be  cured. 

The  case  now  changes.  A  new  fact  develops  which  brings 
the  parties  into  entirely  new  relations.  Now  the  person,  before 
innocent,  becomes  the  guilty  cause ;  he  by  consent  perpetuates 
his  depravity  in  refusing  a  proffered  cure. 

The  result  is  that  the  theory  that  we  are  bom  in  a  state  of 
sin  and  guilt  is  without  foundation  and  contradictive  of  the 
plainest  dictates  of  reason.  Hence  the  utter  confusion  into 
which  its  advocates  have  fallen,  mutually  subverting  and  de¬ 
stroying  each  other.  Every  attempt  to  explain  is  unsatis¬ 
factory,  because  it  is  an  attempt  to  explain  what  intuitive  reason 
declares  not  only  is  not,  but  cannot  be,  true.  The  several  solu¬ 
tions  not  only  antagonize  each  other,  but  each  is  discordant 
with  itself,  and  all  with  first  beliefs.  No  possible  evidence 
could  sustain  the  doctrine,  any  more  than  proof  could  sustain  the 
assumption  that  justice  and  injustice  are  identical.  No  amount 
of  explanation  can  show  why  or  how  that  is  true  which  is  in¬ 
tuitively  known  to  be  false.  Each  new  attempt  only  adds  to 
absurdity  and  increases  the  confusion.  It  is  the  old  folly  re¬ 
enacted  of  showing  why  it  is  that  a  fish  placed  in  a  given  volume 
of  water  adds  neither  to  its  bulk  nor  weight.  The  theory  must 
long  ago  have  been  abandoned,  under  the  rebuke  of  insulted 
reason,  but  for  its  essential  importance  to  a  system  of  which  it 
is  a  part — and  by  no  means  the  most  inadmissible  part. 

Its  chief  grounds  of  defense  are  two :  First,  that  it  is  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  divine  word,  and  therefore  must  be  true  or  the 
word  itself  be  rejected.  This  argument  must  have  weight  with 
all  Christians. 

Our  answer  is  in  two  parts :  First,  that  the  divine  word  can- 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


not  assert  tliat  to  be  true  which  the  divine  voice  within  us 
declares  to  be  false,  since  the  divine  utterance  cannot  be  con* 
tradictory.  Should  a  passage  be  found,  or  a  number  of  them, 
which  seems  to  teach  the  doctrine  it  could  avail  nothing  if  op¬ 
posed  to  dicta  of  original  reason ;  for  the  mind  has  no  power  to 
believe  against  these.  This  is  admitted  by  the  advocates  of  the 
doctrine  itself,  in  their  fruitless  efforts  to  reconcile  the  difficulty, 
and  is  made  available  by  one  party  against  the  method  of 
another.  The  proper  attitude  of  the  mind  in  every  such  case  is 
this :  Here  is  a  passage  which  seems  to  teach  a  doctrine  which 
is  contradictory  of,  first,  self-evident  truths,  the  original  dicta 
of  reason;  but  these  we  cannot  doubt,  therefore  the  passage 
cannot  teach  what  it  seems  to  teach.  It  matters  nothing  how 
direct  and  plain  the  terms  employed,  the  verdict  must  be  the 
same.  Rational  and  sound  interpretation  demands  that  the  pas¬ 
sage  either  be  held  in  abeyance  or  accommodated.  Language 
is  too  uncertain  a  medium  to  enforce  a  seeming  sense  against  a 
primary  cognition.  The  idea  may  be  something  else  than  that 
which  it  appears  to  be  ;  we  may  not  be  able  to  ascertain  what, 
it  may  elude  our  most  diligent  search,  but  it  is  certain  that  it 
cannot  be  such  as  to  oppose  God  to  himself.  That  we  know. 

Is  it  said,  This  canon  subjects  revelation  to  reason,  and  strips 
the  word  of  its  supreme  authority  in  matters  of  faith?  We 
answer,  No  !  What  the  word  teaches  is  final.  It  is  only  a 
question,  What  does  it  teach  ?  Reason  must  determine  this. 
Some  things  reason  declares  it  cannot  teach  because  they  are 
known  not  to  be  true ;  therefore  when,  from  the  imperfection 
of  language,  the  Bible  seems  to  teach  them  we  know  there  is  a 
mistake,  an  improper  apprehension  of  its  utterance.  This  plain 
canon  has  always  been  admitted,  and  must  obtain  until  men  re¬ 
nounce  their  reason.  The  divin  es  have  invariably  availed  them¬ 
selves  of  it  in  connection  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity:  when 

charged  with  holding  the  doctrine  in  a  sense  to  contradict 
6 


Punishment. 


233 


reason  they  deny,  ana  admit  that  the  thing  is  impracticable,  bnt 
they  explain  that  there  must  be  some  sense  in  which  it  is  true, 
since  it  is  revealed.  What  that  sense  is  is  a  mystery,  unknown 
and  inexplicable.  They  do  not  embrace  contradictory  ideas  on 
the  authority  of  the  text.  They  do  not  because  they  cannot. 
It  is  a  law  of  mind.  What  is  enforced  upon  us  as  a  belief 
on  intuitive  grounds  cannot  be  displaced  on  logical  grounds ;  no 
argument  here  can  supplant  the  certainty  there.  This  is  what 
we  demand  in  the  case  under  consideration  :  that  we  be  allowed 
to  find  such  ideas  in  the  word  as  can  be  received  without  the 
rejection  of  what  we  know  is  true  and  therefore  cannot  reject ! 

Second,  the  passages  which  are  adduced  do  not  involve  the 
necessity  of  supposing  them  so  to  teach,  but  may  without  vio¬ 
lence  be  construed  in  harmony  with  the  utterance  of  reason,  so 
that  there  is  no  need  to  suppose  a  conflict  or  to  resort  to  the 
canon  we  have  laid  down. 

What  is  the  position  with  respect  to  original  sin  ?  Not  that 
men  are  sinners.  This  is  undisputed.  Not  that  all  men  are 
born  depraved,  with  a  tendency  to  sin,  which  depravity  is 
called  sin  by  accommodation,  as  leading  to  sin.  This,  also,  is 
undisputed.  Not  that  this  depravity  is  derived  from  Adam, 
having  its  root  in  his  first  sin.  This  is  undisputed.  Not  that 
we  suffer  in  consequence  of  that  sin  and  resulting  depravity. 
This,  also,  is  admitted.  Upon  these  points  we  make  no  de¬ 
murrer  ;  but  to  these : 

First,  that  we  sinned  in  Adam’s  sin,  or  that  his  sin  is  laid 
to  our  charge  as  if  we  had  sinned  in  him.  This  we  deny,  and 
insist  that  not  a  single  passage  of  God’s  word  so  teaches. 

Second,  that  we  are  accounted  guilty,  or  ill  deserving,  either 
for  his  sin  or  the  depravity  which  results  to  us  from  his  sin. 
This  we  deny,  and  insist  that  no  passage  of  the  word  of  God 
so  teaches. 

Third,  that  we  do  suffer,  or  ever  could  have  suffered,  any 
16  6 


234 


Studies  in  Theology. 


punishment  for  his  sin  or  our  resulting  depravity.  This  we 
deny,  and  insist  that  no  passage  of  Scripture  teaches  it.  We 
admit  suffering,  but  not  punishment. 

On  the  contrary,  we  hold  that  the  word  of  God  joins  with  rea¬ 
son  to  repudiate  all  three  of  these  ideas  in  the  most  explicit 
manner. 

The  second  ground  is  this :  That  we  are  in  fact  punished  for 
Adam’s  sin  or  our  resulting  depravity ;  and  since  punishment 
presupposes  guilt  we  must  be  guilty.  Our  answer  is:  We 
admit  that  punishment  presupposes  guilt,  but  deny  the  fact  that 
we  are  punished  and  infer  the  very  opposite :  since  we  are  not 
guilty  we  cannot  be  punished. 

The  ground  upon  which  it  is  assumed  that  we  are  punished 
dor  Adam’s  sin,  and  on  account  of  native  guilt,  is  that  our  whole 
xace  suffers,  even  from  the  earliest  infancy  ;  and  since  it  can¬ 
not  be  a  punishment  of  their  personal  sin  it  must  be  for  their 
sin  in  Adam. 

The  whole  argument  rests  on  the  assumption  that  suffering 
and  punishment  are  identical.  This  we  deny,  and  for  the  argu¬ 
ment  upon  which  our  denial  rests  refer  to  the  section  which 
treats  of  punishment. 

Is  it  a  fact  that  there  is  no  distinction  between  calamities  and 
punishments  ?  Is  suffering  impossible  except  as  punishment  ? 
When  a  government  punishes  a  criminal  does  it  punish  his 
family  ?  It  must  be  obvious  that  there  is  a  difference  in  the 
two  cases  of  suffering  which  renders  them  entirely  dissimilar  in 
intent  and  kind.  This  is  precisely  the  case,  we  find,  under 
the  divine  government.  Criminals  are  punished.  The  crim¬ 
inal  deeds  of  criminals  cause  suffering  to  innocent  persons; 
many  times  consist  in  injuries  of  the  innocent ;  but  are  the 
injuries  of  the  innocent  their  punishment? 

There  are  yet  two  other  schemes  for  accounting  for  the  origin 
and  prevalence  of  sin  and  depravity  among  men  which  deserve 


Punishment. 


235 


brief  mention.  The  first  is  that  which  supposes  the  souls  of 
men  to  have  had  a  former  existence  and  probation,  during 
which  they  sinned  and  fell.  This  theory  has  been  broached 
from  time  to  time  along  the  Christian  ages,  but  without  meet¬ 
ing  with  sufficient  favor  to  create  a  school  of  influence.  Its  most 
recent  advocates  are  Julius  Muller,  in  his  very  able  treatise  on 
Ttie  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  and  Edward  Beecher,  in  his  Con¬ 
flict  of  Ages.  They  find  it  impossible  to  account  for  all  the  facts  of 
the  problem  in  any  other  way,  and  fancy  that  in  this  idea  there 
is  relief.  The  idea  is  substantially  that  of  a  second  probation 
— sinners  in  a  former  life  are  born  into  this  life,  into  a  condition 
of  mitigated  punishments,  but  under  a  provisional  redemption 
of  which  they  may  avail  themselves  and  attain  to  salvation. 
The  fact  of  their  former  actual  sin  and  guilt  explains  their  he¬ 
reditary  sufferings  and  mitigated  penalties.  They  are  put  on  a 
new  probation,  as  sinners  under  disfavor  and  with  condemna¬ 
tion  resting  on  them,  but  with  helps  to  recovery,  and  with  the 
chance,  if  they  will,  of  reprieve.  In  this  way  the  advocates  of 
the  scheme  imagine  they  relieve  the  divine  character  and  ad¬ 
ministration  of  injustice,  and  clothe  both  with  compassionate 
beneficence. 

The  idea  has  its  genesis  in  the  horror  of  a  system  which 
teaches  hereditary  sin  and  guilt.  Revolting  at  this,  they  take 
shelter  in  this  scheme  as  a  dernier  resort.  Reared  in  schools  of 
Calvinistic  and  modified  Calvinistic  thought,  which  they  find  to 
be  untenable  and  yet  from  the  enslavement  of  which  they  are 
not  able  to  free  themselves,  they  accept  this  as  a  possible  refuge. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  say  that  the  assumption  is  a  pure 
fancy,  wholly  unsupported  by  either  reason  or  revelation. 
Nothing  is,  or  can  be,  alleged  for  it — no  facts  of  experience. 
The  soul  knows  absolutely  nothing  of  the  assumed  previous  his¬ 
tory.  The  Bible  makes  no  sign  of  it  Reason  finds  no  ground 
for  it.  It  is  a  sheer  imagination.  The  suggestion  is  so  intrin- 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


sically  absurd  that  in  all  the  eager  search  for  a  possible  solution 
of  the  problem  it  is  unable  to  secure  even  a  meager  following. 
As  it  offers  nothing  to  be  believed  it  shows  nothing  to  be 
refuted. 

The  remaining  view  is  that  which  is  held  by  Arminian 
divines,  and  which  we  advocate.  What,  then,  is  our  view? 

We  hold  that  Adam  is  the  natural  head  of  the  human  race, 
and  in  a  modified  sense  the  covenant,  or  representative,  head ; 
that  is,  that,  as  natural  head,  his  action,  so  far  as  it  might  affect 
his  nature  and  condition,  would  also  favorably  or  unfavorably 
affect  the  nature  and  condition  of  his  posterity.  We  hold  that 
morally  he  represented  himself  alone  ;  that  is,  that,  whatsoever 
he  might  do,  the  morality  of  his  act  would  be  exclusively  his 
own,  and  he  alone  would  be  held  for  it.  If  he  should  remain 
innocent  the  nature  and  condition  of  nature  in  which  he  was 
created  would  descend  to  his  posterity.  Coming  into  existence 
thus  with  a  normal  nature,  his  children,  as  they  became  compe¬ 
tent,  would  have  been  placed,  each  for  himself,  under  obliga¬ 
tions  of  law  ;  that  is,  would  have  entered  necessarily,  as  moral 
beings,  upon  a  responsible  course  in  which,  by  the  same  neces¬ 
sity,  each  one  would  stand  accountable  for  himself.  Proxies 
do  not  exist  in  morals. 

He  did  not  remain  innocent.  He  sinned.  We  believe  that 
his  sin  produced  two  effects.  First,  that  it  made  him  guilty 
and  exposed  him  to  the  punishment  written  in  the  law — death, 
whatever  that  might  be.  Second,  that  it  became  the  occasion 
:  of  the  withdrawment  of  the  divine  favor  from  him,  and  by  this 
and  other — to  us  unknown — causes  he  lost  the  balance  and 
equipoise  of  his  nature,  and  became  extremely  averse  to  good 
and  inclined  to  evil.  That  such  was  the  effect  on  his  nature, 
by  which  we  mean  the  tendencies  of  his  entire  powers  of  heart 
and  mind  and  flesh,  that,  in  himself,  there  remained  no  recov¬ 
ering  power — he  was  totally  overthrown.  We  believe  that 


Punishment. 


237 


under  the  operation  of  that  mysterious  law,  which  prevails 
through  all  being,  under  which  like  begets  like,  children  born 
to  him  must  have  inevitably  inherited  his  evil  tendencies  and 
disabilities ;  that,  so,  existence  to  them  could  have  been  noth¬ 
ing  less  than  inevitable  curse.  We  believe,  therefore,  that  jus¬ 
tice,  not  less  than  mercy,  required  either  that  the  race  should 
be  estopped,  or  that  a  redeeming  economy  should  be  introduced 
by  which  the  calamity  might  be  turned  to  blessing.  We  be¬ 
lieve,  therefore,  that  in  the  sin  of  Adam  the  possibility  of  a  seed 
from  him  perished — we  died  in  him  as  potentialities,  possibili¬ 
ties.  The  injunction  against  our  existence  was  at  the  instance 
of  the  attributes  justice  and  mercy. 

W e  believe  that  at  this  point  in  logical  order,  but  really  in 
the  eternal  plan  foreknown  and  arranged,  the  race  took  a  new 
departure.  The  Redeemer  became  the  head,  in  the  room  of  the 
apostate  Adam,  so  that,  as  we  all  died  potentially  in  Adam  the 
first,  we  were  all  made  alive  potentially  in  Adam  the  second. 
The  existence  of  the  race  is  a  provision  of  redemption ;  each 
life  is  a  redeemed  life — a  life  taking  its  rise  in  redemption. 
Christ  is  the  second  head  of  the  race,  and  in  such  sense  its  head 
that,  but  for  his  relation  to  it,  there  would  be  no  race. 

Under  redemption  the  first  Adam,  the  original  head,  who 
lost  his  headship  by  forfeit,  was  restored,  and  became  the  natu¬ 
ral  source  of  the  race.  Thus  we  exist  by  redemption  through 
Adam. 

Coming  through  Adam,  as  our  natural  head,  we  partake  of 
his  fall ;  inherit  his  degenerate  and  corrupt  nature — his  tendency 
to  evil ;  a  tendency  so  deep  and  radical  that  it  would,  unhin¬ 
dered,  inevitably  carry  us  to  utter  death ;  a  state  in  which,  as 
before  stated,  justice  and  mercy  alike  inhibited  that  we  should 
be  born,  unless  with  or  under  a  redemption,  but  in  which  we 
are  permitted  to  be  born  under  redemption,  both  by  the  con¬ 
sent  of  mercy  and  justice,  for  the  reason  that  the  inherited 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


depravity  in  ns  is  guiltless,  and  for  the  reason  that  redemption 
provides  for  it  a  cure ;  and  for  the  further  reason  that  actual 
sins,  springing  from  its  hereditary  weakness,  under  redemption 
may  be  pardoned,  and  so  the  entire  race,  though  fallen,  and 
actually  sinning,  may  yet  be  saved,  upon  conditions  and  by 
helps  thus  reaching  them  through  redemption.  An  existence 
that  would  have  been  an  inevitable  and  unmixed  curse — and, 
therefore,  an  impossible  thing  under  a  just  dispensation — thus 
now,  with  redemption  provided,  becomes  a  gracious  boon. 

Thus  we  are  found  to  agree  with  those  who  hold  to  congeni¬ 
tal  depravity,  as  to  the  fact  and  source  of  it,  while  we  deny  its 
guilt  as  hereditary. 

We  believe  that  in  Jesus  Christ,  now  our  restoring  head,  the 
entire  human  race  are  born  to  a  heritage  of  eternal  life,  which 
with  all  needful  qualifications  is  secured  to  them  unless,  and 
until,  by  personal  transgression  it  is  forfeited ;  and  that  every 
human  being,  rising  out  of  infancy  into  a  responsible  existence, 
is  immediately  placed  upon  a  just  and  equitable  probation  for 
eternal  life,  each  for  himself,  even  as  the  first  Adam  was  for 
himself. 

We  hold  that,  while  inherited  depravity  is  not  itself  ground 
of  guilt  as  inherited,  it  becomes  ground  of  guilt  when  it  is  vol¬ 
untarily  perpetuated  by  the  refusal  of  the  subject,  after  he  has 
attained  to  responsibility,  to  have  it  overcome  or  removed  by 
availing  himself  of  the  helps  of  redemption  placed  within  his 
reach  thereto.  Innocently  existing  incipiently,  the  depravity 
may  not  be  perpetuated  without  involving  the  subject  in  guilt 
— or  only  so  far  as  it  is  impossible,  by  any  use  of  responsible 
agency,  that  it  should  be  eradicated  or  corrected.  But  even  in 
such  cases  the  guilt  results  from  improper  action  as  to  the  ap¬ 
plication  of  remedies  rather  than  from  the  continued  existence 
of  the  disorder.  Guilt  is  in  the  will ;  either  in  its  wrong  action 
or  inaction.  The  subject,  as  depraved,  is  shut  away  from  com- 


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239 


munion  with  God,  and  is  held  guiltily  responsible,  and  an  ob¬ 
ject  of  displeasure  for  failing  to  have  the  offensive  impediment 
removed.  He  has  now  accepted  it,  and  becomes  guilty  on 
account  of  it,  as  making  it  his  own  voluntary  state.  Primarily 
he  had  no  responsibility  in  the  premises,  because  it  was  a  fact 
with  whose  existence  he  had  no  connection.  Now,  he  is  solely 
responsible  because  its  continuance  is  by  his  consent  or  guilty 
inaction.  His  guilt  is  precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  it 
remains  by  his  tolerance.  So  far  as  it  is  impossible  to  him  to 
have  it  removed  he  is  guiltless.  This  depraved  nature,  we 
allow,  is  sinful  in  these  two  senses :  first,  that  it  tends  to  sin 
from  the  beginning — tends  to  courses  of  action  which  in  a 
responsible  being  would  be  sins;  second,  when  tolerated,  ac¬ 
cepted,  and  followed  by  a  responsible  being,  it  is  sin — or  he 
becomes  a  sinner  on  account  of  it. 

Further,  we  hold  that  in  consequence  of  our  depravity,  as 
children  of  a  fallen  head,  we  inherit  the  fortunes  of  suffering 
and  death ;  which  to  him  were  penal  but  to  us  are  permitted  as 
an  inheritance  of  nature,  and,  far  from  being  penal,  are  many 
times  the  chastisements  and  corrections  of  love  and  included  in 
an  economy  of  salvation. 

Yet,  further,  we  hold  that  our  congenital  depravity,  while  it 
does  not  involve  guilt,  is  an  evil  of  nature  which  needs  to  be 
removed ;  a  root  on  which  sin  has  a  tendency  to  grow ;  an  ab¬ 
normal  and  ruinous  condition  which  must  be  remedied  in  order 
to  real  spiritual  life — the  communion  of  God ;  it  is  of  the  nature 
of  a  malady  from  which  the  soul  must  be  delivered  in  order  to 
its  happy  existence;  redemption,  by  which  it  is  possible  to 
exist,  is  remedial  deliverance — that  is,  the  soul  is  under  agency 
of  cure,  and  in  the  case  of  such  as  are  removed  from  life  before 
the  period  of  personal  accountability,  such,  therefore,  as  have 
not  worked  personal  forfeiture  of  eternal  life,  we  hold  that  the 
abnormal  condition  is  unconditionally  remedied,  in  a  manner 


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to  us  unexplained,  so  that  they  are  fitted  for  eternal  life.  In 
the  case  of  those  who  attain  to  responsibility  we  hold  that,  by 
an  act  of  faith  on  their  part,  the  Spirit  of  God  becomes  a  regen¬ 
erating  agent,  freeing  them  from  the  dominion  of  depravity  and 
renewing  their  fallen  nature ;  restoring  order  and  spiritual  life ; 
making  them  new  creatures. 

Finally,  we  hold  that  no  man  or  angel  ever  did,  or  ever  can, 
fail  of  the  favor  of  God,  or  become  subject  to  his  displeasure, 
except  by  personal  sin ;  that  guilt  and  punishment  are  facts 
which  require  always  and  absolutely,  as  a  necessary  condition 
to  their  existence,  a  personal  act  of  transgression — a  renuncia¬ 
tion  of  life.  The  entire  race  exist  in  J esus  Christ  as  a  redeem¬ 
ing  head ;  in  no  other  way  do  or  could  they  exist ;  and  in  him 
they  must  remain  as  redeemed  until  they  take  themselves  per¬ 
sonally  out  of  his  hands  at  the  point  where  law  meets  them 
and  personal  disobedience  severs  them. 

Still,  it  is  said  that  our  view  does  not  relieve  the  case  of  the 
apparent  injustice  charged  against  the  theory  we  reject,  since 
we  admit  that  great  and  manifold  evils  come  to  the  race  by  in¬ 
heritance,  which  is  a  manifest  injustice  if  they  are  innocent. 

To  this  we  answer  in  two  parts.  If  we  were  compelled 
to  allow  the  first  part  of  the  statement  it  would  involve  no 
necessity  of  admitting  the  second  part.  It  is  conceivable  that 
we  might  incur  even  serious  disadvantage,  and  real  temporary 
harm,  under  a  perfectly  just  and  equitable  system.  We  have 
no  right  to  assume  that  a  condition  less  favorable  than  Adam’s 
would  be  an  injustice  to  his  children.  There  may  be  a  necessity 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  which  utmost  goodness  may  not  be 
able  to  overcome,  why  the  offspring  of  transgressing  ancestors 
should  be  less  favorably  circumstanced  than  if  they  had  re¬ 
mained  unsinning,  and  yet  compensation  be  introduced  which 
would  make  their  condition  not  only  not  one  of  hardship  but 
one  of  real  and  abundant  kindness.  Sin  may  be  a  factor  whose 


Punishment. 


241 


presence,  on  the  whole,  diminishes  the  good  of  every  being  in 
the  universe,  relatively  to  what  it  would  have  been  had  no  sin 
been  committed,  and  yet  its  presence  may  not  impugn  either 
the  goodness  or  the  justice  of  God  toward  general  being. 

The  disadvantage  might  be  real,  even  great,  and  might  in¬ 
volve  manifold  perils  and  actual  sufferings  to  the  perfectly 
innocent  without  injustice,  since  innocence,  as  we  have  seen, 
does  not  imply  exemption  either  from  exposure  or  actual  suf¬ 
fering,  but  only  exemption  from  needless  and  unjust  hardships 
and,  especially,  penal  inflictions.  It  is  conceivable  that  such 
might  be  our  relations  to  Adam,  or  such  our  relations  to  our 
immediate  ancestors,  or  to  society  around  us,  that  the  sin  of 
anyone  would  limit  or  lessen  our  probationary  heritage,  and 
yet  the  damage  imply  no  injustice  to  us  in  Him  who  so  framed 
the  constitution  of  the  universe  as  to  make  such  injury  possible. 
The  very  fact  which  made  the  possibility  of  injury  may  be  the 
fact  which  contains  in  it  the  highest  substance  of  good.  A  son 
might  so  impair  the  father’s  fortune  as  really  to  lessen  the 
estate  and  limit  the  income  of  all  the  other  members  of  the 
family,  and  no  actual  wrong  be  done  on  the  part  of  the  father, 
who  was  thus  hindered  from  doing  by  them  as  he  would  have 
done  but  for  this  circumstance.  It  seems  to  be  a  law  of  social 
life,  inevitable  to  natures  capable  of  sympathy  and  love,  that 
there  should  be  liability  of  one  member  to  suffer  with  and  by 
another ;  the  wrong  done  by  one  or  against  one  may  painfully 
vibrate  through  the  whole.  In  fact,  the  whole  idea  of  duty 
with  relation  to  another,  the  moral  economy,  involves  the  pos¬ 
sibility  that,  either  by  neglect  or  malfeasance,  one  should  be 
subject  of  temporary  harm;  but  this  does  not  imply  injustice 
in  the  constitution. 

The  moral  system  is  the  crown  and  glory  of  all  God’s  great 
and  wonderful  provisions ;  that  without  which  the  created  uni¬ 
verse  would  have  been  barren  and  incomplete,  that  without 


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winch  no  note  of  rational  joy  or  ecstasy  of  rational  love  or  con¬ 
sciousness  of  worth  could  have  existed  in  any  realm ;  and  yet 
that  grandest  and  most  significant  work  of  all  had  to  lay  its 
corner  stone  in  possibilities  of  deepest  evil. 

The  Infinite  saw  fit  to  start  moral  races  on  a  platform  of  in¬ 
nocence,  and  with  natures  attuned  to  right,  and  we  do  not  see 
how  he  could  have  done  otherwise,  either  in  wisdom,  or  love, 
or  justice ;  but  this  does  not  imply  that  a  probation  so  projected 
was  either  the  only  conceivable  form  that  might  arise,  or  that 
it  contained  in  it  the  greatest  possible  advantages.  For  aught 
we  know  to  the  contrary  a  scheme  of  probation  might  be  per¬ 
fected,  for  a  race  which  had  failed  under  the  first  form,  that 
would  redeem  their  failure  and  bring  them  to  a  most  glorious 
culmination  under  its  provisions.  Who  dare  say  that  redemp¬ 
tion  was  not  foreseen  to  be  an  absolute  need  to  the  moral  uni¬ 
verse,  to  repair  foreseen  lapses  under  the  rigors  of  law — and 
that,  therefore,  it  was  a  primitive  provision  of  the  eternal  plan, 
complementing  and  completing,  with  its  greater  glory,  the  first, 
or  legal,  scheme? 

But  now,  having  seen  that  hardships  to  the  innocent  might 
possibly  arise  under  a  moral  system,  and  that  this  is  a  very  dif¬ 
ferent  thing  from  the  supposition  that  they  might  be  justly 
punished  for  sins  which  they  never  committed,  let  us  see 
whether  there  is  any  ground  for  the  assumption  that  our  con¬ 
dition  has  been  greatly  injured  by  Adam’s  sin. 

To  form  a  just  judgment  in  the  case  we  must  contrast  our 
case  as  it  is  under  redemption  with  what  it  would  have  been 
under  the  primeval  economy ;  compare  what  we  lost  under  law 
with  what  we  have  gained  under  Gospel ;  what  we  had  in  our 
first  head  with  what  we  have  in  our  second  Head.  It  may  turn 
out,  after  all,  that  our  loss  is  our  gain ;  that,  strange  as  it  may 
sound,  it  is  better  for  us  to  come  into  being  fallen,  under  re¬ 
demption  and  the  operation  of  its  restorative  forces,  than  it 


Punishment. 


243 


would  have  oeen  to  be  born,  unfallen,  under  the  law ;  that  what 
at  first  view  seems  to  be  so  great  a  disaster  will  in  the  outcome 
prove  to  be  to  our  advantage.  This  would  be  no  utterly  unique 
thing  in  the  government  of  the  Almighty  Father,  who  is  able 
to  bring  good  out  of  evil  and  make  the  wrath  and  folly  of  men, 
and  even  devils,  to  praise  him.  If  any  should  be  disposed  to 
say,  The  supposition  is  impossible,  and  even  blasphemous,  since 
it  would  be  making  sin  a  good,  we  answer,  No ;  it  would  be 
nothing  of  the  kind.  It  would  leave  the  sin  still  the  same ;  but 
it  would  be  only  allowing  that  infinite  wisdom  and  love  may  be 
able  in  their  boundless  resources  to  overrule  that  which  in  itself 
is  really  evil,  not  so  as  to  make  it  good,  but  so  as  to  make  it 
the  occasion  of  a  good  not  otherwise  attainable.  This  seems  to 
be  the  apostle’s  view  in  Rom.  v,  “Where  sin  abounded 
grace  did  much  more  abound.’’  Observe,  what  we  say  is  not 
that  our  depravity  is  a  good,  or  could  ever  become  such,  but 
that  the  evil  which  has  happened  to  us  becomes  the  occasion  of 
an  interposing  mercy  which  makes  our  condition  after  it  more 
secure,  as  to  our  highest  good,  than  before  it.  Let  us  see  how 
this  might  be. 

Before  the  fall  we  were  under  law ;  since  the  fall,  and  by  oc¬ 
casion  of  it,  we  are  under  grace. 

Flow,  what  was  it  to  be  under  law  ?  As  to  the  persons,  to 
be  under  law  was  to  be  in  a  state  of  innocence — to  be  as  Adam 
was.  Had  he  not  sinned  it  is  safe  to  infer  that  we,  his  chil¬ 
dren,  would  have  inherited  both  his  innocent  nature  and  his 
moral  position  of  innocence.  That  looks  well  for  safety  and 
happiness.  But  was  he  safe  ?  Was  there  no  avenue  by  which 
harm  could  reach  him?  The  law  read,  “  In  the  day  thou  eatest 
thereof,  thou  shalt  surely  die.”  Secure  and  blessed  as  it  is 
death  may  come  to  this  beautiful  Eden.  One  trembles  as  he 
reads  that  dreadful  covenant  which  puts  eternity  on  the  hazard 
of  a  single  chance.  Into  that  covenant  the  unfallen  Adam 


Studies  in  Theology. 


244 

would  have  brought  his  unfallen  children.  I  know  it  is  as¬ 
sumed  that,  had  he  not  sinned,  his  children  would  have  been 
placed  beyond  the  possibility  of  sinning;  the  hazard  would 
have  been  forever  passed.  But  this  assumption  is  without 
shadow  of  foundation.  The  opposite  fact  is  not  only  probable 
but  is  absolutely  certain.  Each  moral  being  must  stand  for 
itself,  and  must  for  itself  undergo  the  perils  of  probation.  Is 
it  not  frightful  to  think  of  existence  under  an  economy  which 
provided  no  mercy  for  a  single  deviation,  and  with  such  sur¬ 
roundings  that  the  very  first  experiment  proved  a  disastrous 
failure  !  We  do  not  accuse  that  economy  of  injustice,  but  we 
do  say  its  possibilities  were  terrible.  To  a  finite  being,  tempt- 
able  in  his  nature,  probation  under  a  covenant  that  will  allow 
of  no  extenuations,  admit  of  no  forgiveness,  but  will  visit  with 
remediless  death  the  first  transgression,  is  not  a  condition  to  be 
coveted,  even  though  an  unfallen  being  be  the  subject  of  it. 
Who  is  able  to  say  that  less  possibilities  of  evil  would  be  con¬ 
tained  in  the  plan  of  individual  probations  under  such  a  scheme 
than  are  involved  in  the  economy  of  redemption  ? 

What  is  the  economy?  In  general  it  is  the  economy  of 
probation  for  fallen  beings.  As  to  the  persons  there  is  this 
difference  :  Under  the  first  economy  they  were  unfallen,  under 
the  second  they  are  fallen ;  under  that  the  nature  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  tended  to  righteousness,  but  with  a  possibility  of  temptation 
and  sin  ;  under  this  the  nature  tends  to  sin,  but  with  a  possibility 
of  recovery ;  under  that  one  failure  was  inevitable  ruin,  under 
this  a  million  failures  may  be  repented  of  and  pardoned,  and  so 
the  ruin  be  averted. 

The  contrast  between  a  fallen  and  an  unfallen  world,  it  must 
be  admitted,  is  painfully  striking ;  between  a  nature  stricken 
with  the  leprosy  of  depravity  and  a  nature  pure  and  innocent; 
between  bodies  filled  with  pain  and  disease  and  death  and 
bodies  thrilled  with  the  vigors  of  diseaseless  life  ;  between  homes 


Punishment. 


245 


blighted  and  darkened  with  ignorance,  malignity,  and  shame, 
and  homes  sacred  and  beautiful  and  holy  ;  between  the  sorrows 
and  bereavements  of  a  world  full  of  anguish  and  graves  and  a 
world  without  tears  and  death.  At  first  look,  and  on  the  sur¬ 
face,  the  advantage  seems  all  one  way ;  but  maybe  it  is  not  so. 
If  we  take  a  broader  and  deeper  view  we  may  find  that  birth 
in  the  darker  world  is,  after  all,  more  desirable. 

It  may  be  heresy,  but  for  myself,  deeply  conscious  as  I  am 
of  the  plague  of  a  nature  utterly  sinful  in  its  tendencies,  I  would 
rather  be  in  the  second  head  than  in  the  first ;  rather  take  my 
chances  with  Christ  than  with  the  unfallen  Adam  ;  rather  be 
born  a  fallen  soul,  in  a  fallen  world,  under  the  redemption  of 
Jesus,  with  all  sorrow  and  suffering  brimming  my  cup  of  earthly 
life,  than  be  born  of  Eve  amid  the  bloom  of  paradise,  with 
angel  brothers  around  me,  under  the  inevitable  exposures  and 
terrible  dangers  of  an  economy  of  unappeasable  law  ;  rather  take 
the  certainties  of  sin,  with  the  possibilities  of  pardon  and  re¬ 
covery  with  a  Saviour  such  as  Jesus,  than  the  hopes  of  fallible 
immaculateness  without  a  redeemer.  If  others  would  choose 
Adam  I  would  choose  Christ.  I  am  content  to  enter  a  fallen 
world  through  the  gate  of  suffering  if  I  may  feel  enfolding  me 
the  arms  of  the  pitying,  omnipotent  Son  of  Mary,  rather  than 
an  unfallen  wTorld,  with  the  exigencies  and  perils  of  fallibility 
without  a  rescuer.  If  others  would  venture,  of  choice,  on  an 
eternity  whose  doom  hangs  in  the  balance  of  a  single  chance 
under  the  primeval  law  I  would  cling  to  the  Seed  of  the 
woman,  who  saves  to  the  uttermost  of  a  thousand  sins  and  falls. 
For,  see :  under  the  former,  if  there  be  innocence,  it  is  innocence 
under  law,  innocence  temptable ;  innocence  so  frail  that  it  per¬ 
ishes  at  the  first  breath  of  trial ;  an  innocence  which,  once  for¬ 
feited,  is  irrecoverable ;  one  misstep,  and  all  is  lost ;  one  blunder, 
and  a  plunge  into  a  hopeless  eternity.  Under  the  latter  if 

there  is  taint  there  is  cure  ;  if  there  is  sin  there  is  pardon.  That 

6 


246 


Studies  in  Theology. 


had  its  tree  of  life,  it  is  true,  but  it  had  also  its  flaming  sword 
and  its  avenging  angel ;  this  also  has  its  tree  of  life  and  its  olive 
branch  of  promise  and  invitation  of  mercy.  That  rewarded  the 
faithful,  this  opens  its  arms  to  the  prodigal ;  that  had  no  death, 
this  has  a  grave — but  also  a  conquering  Jesus  and  a  transform¬ 
ing  resurrection  ;  that  opened  heaven,  through  the  clouds,  to  the 
unsinning ;  this  opens  heaven  to  the  sinning,  through  Calvary 
and  by  the  way  of  the  tomb,  with  songs  and  shouts  of  redeem¬ 
ing  victory.  Again  I  say,  if  any  would  complain  of  the  hard¬ 
ships  of  the  probation  of  Adam’s  fallen  seed,  as  compared  with 
the  probation  of  the  unfallen,  I  have  no  complaints.  To  my 
thinking  we  gain  more  in  the  second  than  we  lost  in  the  first. 

If  we  look  on  beyond  probation  we  know  not  what  was  the 
possibility  of  innocence  ;  what  heights  of  glory  were  in  reser¬ 
vation  for  them — where  amid  the  ascending  eternities  they 
would  have  shone  and  sung.  Doubtless  their  destiny  would 
have  been  inconceivably  glorious.  Their  powers  indicate 
a  progression  in  which  culminations  followed  by  still  more 
ineffable  culminations  would  have  filled  the  measure  of  immor¬ 
tal  existence.  But  will  Jesus  do  less  for  his  ransomed  seed? 
Shall  they  who  came  up  out  of  great  tribulation,  scarred  on  the 
battlefields  of  temptation  and  sin  and  bearing  the  marks  of  suf¬ 
fering  and  death  incurred  in  the  dreadful  struggle,  shall  they, 
with  robes  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  the  purchase  of 
Calvary’s  agony,  have  a  less  conspicuous  glory  ?  We  venture 
to  believe  not  “  Having  suffered  with  him  they  shall  also  be 
glorified  together.” 

With  this  view  Chalmers  seems  to  agree.  He  says : 

“  In  the  three  verses  that  follow  we  have  such  a  parallel 
drawn  between  the  evil  entailed  upon  us  by  the  first  Adam, 
and  the  good  purchased  and  procured  for  us  by  the  second 
Adam,  as  to  evince  that  there  is  something  more  than  compen¬ 
sation,  but  such  an  overbalance  of  blessedness  provided  to  us  by 


Punishment. 


247 


the  Gospel  as  may  well  serve  to  reconcile  us  to  the  whole  of  this 
wondrous  administration.  Rom.  v,  15-17 :  4  But  not  as  the 
offense,  so  also  is  the  free  gift :  for  if  through  the  offense  of 
one  many  be  dead,  much  more  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift 
by  grace,  which  is  by  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  hath  abounded 
unto  many.  And  not  as  it  was  by  one  that  sinned,  so  is  the 
gift :  for  the  judgment  was  by  one  to  condemnation,  but  the 
free  gift  is  of  many  offenses  unto  justification.  For  if  by  one 
man’s  offense  death  reigned  by  one ;  much  more  they  which 
receive  abundance  of  grace  and  of  the  gift  of  righteousness 
shall  reign  in  life  by  one,  Jesus  Christ’ 

“We  do  feel  that  there  is  a  considerable  difficulty  in  this 
short  passage ;  and  the  following  is  the  only  explanation  that 
we  are  able  to  give  of  it.  You  will  observe  that  in  the  four¬ 
teenth  verse  the  effect  of  Adam’s  sin  in  bringing  death  upon  his 
posterity  is  demonstrated  by  this  circumstance  that  the  sentence 
had  full  execution,  even  upon  those  who  had  not  in  their  own 
persons  sinned  as  he  did.  Death  reigned  even  over  them ;  and 
it  made  Adam  to  be  the  figure  of  Christ,  that  what  the  one 
brought  upon  mankind  by  his  disobedience  the  other  by  his 
obedience  did  away. 

“But  Christ  did  more  than  do  away  the  sentence  which  lay 
upon  mankind  because  of  the  sin  of  Adam  being  imputed  to 
them.  This  and  no  other  sentence  was  all  that  could  be  inflicted 
on  infants,  or  those  who  had  not  sinned  actually.  But  in  ad¬ 
dition  to  the  guilt  that  we  have  by  inheritance  there  is  also  a 
guilt  which  all  who  live  a  few  years  in  the  world  incur  by  prac¬ 
tice.  The  one  offense  of  Adam  landed  us  in  guilt ;  but  the 
many  offenses  of  the  heart  and  life  of  us  all  have  woefully  ac¬ 
cumulated  that  guilt.  And  we  stand  in  need,  not  merely  of  as 
much  grace  as  might  redeem  us  from  the  forfeiture  that  was 
passed  on  the  whole  human  family  in  consequence  of  the  trans¬ 
gression  of  their  first  parent,  but  also  of  as  much  new  grace  as 

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might  redeem  us  from  the  curse  and  the  condemnation  of  our 
own  iniquities — as  might  redeem  us,  not  merely  from  the  debt 
that  has  been  entailed  upon  us,  but  from  the  additional  debt 
that  has  been  incurred  by  us. 

“And  thus  it  is  that  not  as  the  offense  so  also  is  the  gift  For 
the  gift  by  Christ  compensates  for  more  evil  than  the  offense 
by  Adam  has  entailed.  Through  that  one  offense  the  penalty 
of  death  passed  upon  many,  even  upon  all  whom  Adam  repre¬ 
sented.  But  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift  which  emanated 
therefrom  and  was  won  for  us  by  the  one  man  Jesus  Christ, 
greatly  exceeds  in  its  amount  the  recallmentof  this  penalty  from 
the  many  whom  Christ  represented.  The  condemnation  we 
derive  from  Adam  was  passed  upon  us  because  of  his  one 
offense.  The  free  gift  of  justification  we  receive  from  Christ 
not  merely  reverses  that  condition  of  guilt  in  which  Adam  has 
placed  us,  but  that  still  more  aggravated  condition  of  guilt  in 
which  we  have  been  placed  by  the  multitude  of  our  own 
offenses.  We  obtain,  not  only  justification  from  the  guilt  of 
Adam’s  one  offense,  but  justification  from  the  guilt  of  our  own 
many  offenses.  Such  was  the  virulent  mischief  even  of  the 
one  offense  that  through  it,  and  it  alone,  even  when  separated 
from  all  actual  guilt,  as  in  the  case  of  infants,  death  reigned  in 
the  world.  There  was  more  grace  needed,  however,  than  would 
suffice  merely  to  counteract  this  virulence,  for  greatly  had  it 
been  aggravated  by  the  abundance  of  actual  iniquity  among 
men ;  and  for  this  there  was  an  abundance,  or,  as  it  might  have 
been  translated,  a  surplus  of  grace  provided,  so  that,  while  the 
effect  of  Adam's  single  offense  was  to  make  death  reign,  greatly 
must  the  power  of  the  restorative  administered  by  the  second 
Adam  exceed  the  malignity  of  the  sin  that  has  been  transmitted 
to  us  by  the  first  Adam,  inasmuch  as  it  heals,  not  merely  the 
hereditary,  but  all  the  superinduced  diseases  of  our  spiritual 
constitution,  and  causes  those  over  whom  death  reigned,  solely 


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249 


on  account  of  Adam’s  guilt,  to  reign  in  life,  though  for  their 
own  guilt  as  well  as  Adam’s  they  had  rightfully  to  die. 

u  This  is  all  the  length  at  which  we  can  penetrate  into  this  pas¬ 
sage.  We  see  affirmed  in  it  the  superiority  of  that  good  which 
Christ  has  done  for  us  over  that  evil  which  Adam  has  entailed 
upon  us.  W e  see  in  it  enough  to  stop  the  mouth  of  any  gain¬ 
say  er  who  complains  that  he  has  been  made  chargeable  for  the 
guilt  which  he  never  contracted ;  for  we  there  see  announced  to 
us,  not  merely  release  from  this  one  charge,  but  from  all  the  ad¬ 
ditional  charges  which  by  our  own  willful  disobedience  we  have 
brought  upon  ourselves.  The  heir  of  a  burdened  property,  who 
curses  the  memory  of  his  father  and  complains  of  the  weight 
and  hardship  of  the  mortgages  he  has  left  behind  him,  ought  in 
all  justice  to  be  appeased  when  his  father’s  friend,  moved  by 
regard  to  his  family,  not  only  offers  to  liquidate  the  debts  that 
were  transmitted  to  him  by  inheritance,  but  also  the  perhaps 
heavier  debts  of  his  own  extravagance  and  folly.  From  the 
mouth  of  a  willful  and  obstinate  sinner  may  we  often  hear  the 
reproach  of  God  for  the  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin  to  his  blame¬ 
less  and  unoffending  posterity ;  and  were  he  indeed  a  blameless 
individual  who  was  so  dealt  with  there  might  be  reason  for  the 
outcry  of  felt  and  fancied  injustice.  But,  seeing  that  in  har¬ 
dened  impiety,  or  at  least  in  careless  indifference,  he  spends  his 
days,  living  without  God  in  the  world  and  accumulating  vol¬ 
untarily  upon  his  own  head  the  very  guilt  against  which  he 
protests  so  loudly  when  laid  upon  him  by  the  misconduct  of 
another,  this  ought  at  least  to  mitigate  a  little  the  severity  of  his 
invective  ;  and  it  ought  wholly  to  disarm  and  to  turn  it  when 
a  covering  so  ample  is  stretched  forth,  if  he  will  only  have  it, 
both  for  the  guilt  at  which  he  murmurs  and  for  the  guilt  of  his 
own  misdoings.  Nor  has  he  any  right  to  protest  against  the 
share  that  has  been  assigned  to  him  in  the  doom  of  Adam’s  dis¬ 
obedience,  when,  willfully  as  he  has  aggravated  that  doom  upon 
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himself,  there  is  a  grace  held  out  to  him,  and  a  gift  by  grace, 
which  so  nobly  overpasses  all  the  misery  of  man's  unregenerate 
nature  and  all  its  condemnation. 

“  Perhaps  there  is  a  great  deal  more  in  this  passage  than  we 
have  been  able  to  bring  out  of  it.  It  is  likely  enough  that  the 
apostle  may  have  had  in  his  mind  the  state  of  the  redeemed 
when  they  are  made  to  reign  in  life  by  Jesus  Christ,  as  con¬ 
trasted  with  what  the  state  of  man  would  have  been  had  Adam 
persisted  in  innocency,  and  bequeathed  all  the  privileges  of  in¬ 
nocence  to  a  pure  and  untainted  posterity.  In  this  latter  case 
our  species  would  have  kept  their  place  in  God's  unfallen 
creation  and  maintained  that  position  in  the  scale  of  order 
and  dignity  which  was  at  first  assigned  to  them ;  and,  though 
lower  than  the  angels,  would  at  least  have  shone  with  an  unpol¬ 
luted  though  a  humbler  glory,  and  have  either  remained  upon 
earth,  or  perhaps  have  been  transplanted  to  heaven,  with  the 
insignia  of  all  those  virtues  which  they  had  kept  untainted  and 
entire  upon  their  own  characters.  Now,  certain  it  is  that  the 
redeemed  in  heaven  will  be  made  to  recover  all  that  personal 
worth  and  accomplishment  which  was  lost  by  the  fall,  and  in 
point  of  moral  luster  will  shine  forth  at  least  with  all  that  orig¬ 
inal  brightness  in  which  humanity  was  formed ;  and  in  the 
songs  of  their  joyful  eternity  will  there  be  ingredients  of  trans¬ 
port  and  of  grateful  emotion  which,  but  for  a  Eedeemer  to  wash 
them  from  their  sins  in  his  blood,  could  never  have  been  felt  ; 
and,  what  perhaps  is  more  than  all,  they  are  invested  with  an 
order  of  merit  which  no  prowess  of  archangel  could  ever  win ; 
they  are  clothed  with  a  righteousness  purer  than  those  heavens 
which  are  not  clean  in  the  sight  of  infinite  and  unspotted  holi¬ 
ness  ;  they  are  seen  in  the  face  of  Him  who  takes  precedency 
over  all  that  is  created ;  and,  besides  being  admitted  into  the 
honor  of  that  more  special  and  intimate  relationship  which  sub¬ 
sists  between  the  divine  Messiah  and  those  who  are  the  fruit  and 


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251 


travail  of  his  soul,  it  is  indeed  a  wondrous  distinction  that  the 
Son  of  God,  by  descending  to  the  fellowship  of  our  nature,  has 
ennobled  and  brought  up  the  nature  of  man  to  a  preeminence 
so  singularly  glorious. 

“Verses  18, 19 :  ‘  Therefore,  as  by  the  offense  of  one  judgment 
came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation ;  even  so  by  the  righteous¬ 
ness  of  one  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto  justification 
of  life.  For  as  by  one  man’s  disobedience  many  were  made  sin¬ 
ners,  so  by  the  obedience  of  one  shall  many  be  made  righteous.” 

“  The  three  last  verses  state  the  disparity  between  the  two 
Adams  in  respect  of  the  amount  of  good  and  evil  conveyed 
by  them.  The  two  before  us  state  the  similarity  between  them 
in  respect  of  the  mode  of  conveyance  of  this  good  and  this  evil. 
They  contain,  in  fact,  the  strength  of  the  argument  for  the  im¬ 
putation  of  Adam’s  sin.  As  the  condemnation  of  Adam  comes 
to  us,  even  so  does  the  justification  by  Christ  come  to  us. 
Now,  we  know  that  the  merit  of  the  Saviour  is  ascribed  to  us, 
else  no  atonement  for  the  past,  and  no  renovation  of  heart  or 
of  life  that  is  ever  exemplified  in  this  world  for  the  future,  will 
suffice  for  our  acceptance  with  God.  Even  so  then  must  the 
demerit  of  Adam  have  been  ascribed  to  us.  The  analogy 
affirmed  in  these  verses  leads  irresistably  to  this  conclusion. 
The  judgment  that  we  are  guilty  is  transferred  to  us  from  the 
actual  guilt  of  the  one  representative,  even  as  the  judgment 
that  we  are  righteous  is  transferred  to  us  from  the  actual 
righteousness  of  the  other  representative.  We  are  sinners  in 
virtue  of  one  man's  disobedience,  independently  of  our  own 
personal  sins ;  and  we  are  rightous  in  virtue  of  another’s  obedi¬ 
ence,  independently  of  our  own  personal  qualifications.  We 
do  not  say  but  that  through  Adam  we  become  personally  sin¬ 
ful,  inheriting  as  we  do  his  corrupt  nature.  Neither  do  we  say 
but  that  through  Christ  we  become  personally  holy,  deriving 
out  of  his  fullness  the  very  graces  which  adorned  his  own  char- 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


acter.  But,  as  it  is  at  best  a  tainted  holiness  that  we  have  on 
this  side  of  death,  we  must  have  something  more  than  it  in 
which  to  appear  before  God ;  and  the  righteousness  of  Christ, 
reckoned  unto  us  and  rewarded  in  us,  is  that  something.  The 
something  which  corresponds  to  this  in  Adam  is  his  guilt, 
reckoned  unto  us  and  punished  in  us ;  so  that,  to  complete  the 
analogy,  as  from  him  we  get  the  infusion  of  the  depravity,  so 
from  him  also  do  we  get  the  imputation  of  his  demerit 

“  One  may  suppose  from  the  eighteenth  verse  that  the  number 
who  are  justified  in  Christ  is  equal  to  the  number  who  are  con¬ 
demned  in  Adam,  and  that  this  comprehends  the  whole  human 
race.  But  by  the  term  ‘  all,’  we  are  merely  to  understand,  all, 
on  the  one  hand,  who  are  in  that  relation  to  Adam,  which  infers 
the  descent  of  his  guilt  upon  them ;  and  that  is  certainly  the 
whole  family  of  mankind ;  and  thus  1  all,’  on  the  other  hand, 
who  are  in  that  relation  to  Christ  which  infers  the  descent  of 
his  righteousness  upon  them  ;  and  that  is  only  the  family  of 
believers.  As  in  Adam,  it  is  said,  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ 
shall  all  be  made  alive.  But  the  1  all  ’  does  not  refer  to  the  same 
body  of  people.  The  first,  who  die  in  Adam,  evidently  refer 
to  the  whole  human  race.  But  the  second,  who  live  in  Christ, 
are  restricted  by  the  apostle  to  those  who  are  Christ’s,  and  will 
be  made  alive  by  him  at  his  coming.  All  men  have  not  faith, 
and  all  men  therefore  will  not  reign  in  life  by  Christ  Jesus. 

“For  anything  we  know  the  mediation  of  Christ  may  have 
affected,  in  a  most  essential  way,  the  general  state  of  humanity ; 
and,  by  some  mode  unexplained  and  inexplicable,  may  it  have 
bettered  the  condition  of  those  who  die  in  infancy,  or  who  die 
in  unreached  heathenism,  and  aggravated  the  condition  of  none 
but  those  who  bring  upon  themselves  the  curse  and  the  severity 
of  a  rejected  Gospel.  But  the  matter  which  concerns  you  is 
that,  unless  you  receive  Christ  in  time,  you  will  never  reign 
with  him  in  eternity.  You  will  not  be  admitted  into  the  num- 


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253 


ber  of  those  all,  who,  though  they  comprehend  the  entire  family 
of  believers,  do  not  comprehend  any  that  obey  not  the  Gospel ; 
and  it  is  at  your  peril  if,  when  the  offer  of  an  interest  in  the 
righteousness  of  Christ  is  placed  within  your  reach,  you  turn  in 
indifference  away  from  it 

“  And  it  is  of  vital  importance  to  you  to  know  that  the  free  gift, 
though  it  comes  not  upon  you  all  in  the  way  of  absolute  con¬ 
veyance,  it  at  least  comes  upon  you  all  in  the  way  of  offer.  It 
is  yours  if  you  will.  The  offer  is  unto  all  and  upon  all  who 
now  hear  us,  though  the  thing  offered  is  only  unto  all  and 
upon  all  who  believe.  We  ask  each  individual  among  you  to 
isolate  himself  from  the  rest  of  the  species— to  conceive  for  a 
moment  that  he  is  the  only  sinner  upon  the  face  of  the  earth, 
that  none  but  he  stands  in  need  of  an  atoning  sacrifice,  and  none 
but  he  of  an  everlasting  righteousness  brought  in  by  another 
and  that  might  avail  for  his  justification  before  God.  Let  him 
imagine  that  for  him,  the  one  and  solitary  offender,  Christ  came 
on  the  express  errand  to  seek  and  to  save ;  that  for  him  he 
poured  out  his  soul  unto  the  death  ;  that  for  him  the  costly  ap¬ 
paratus  of  redemption  was  raised  ;  that  for  him,  and  for  him 
alone,  the  Bible  was  written ;  and  a  messenger  from  heaven  sent 
to  entreat  that  he  will  enter  into  reconciliation  with  God,  through 
that  way  of  mediatorship  which  God  in  his  love  had  devised, 
for  the  express  accommodation  of  this  single  wanderer,  who 
had  strayed,  an  outcast  and  an  alien,  from  the  habitation  of  the 
unfallen,  and  that  it  now  turns  upon  his  own  choice  whether 
he  will  abide  among  the  paths  of  destruction  or  be  readmitted 
to  all  the  honors  and  felicities  of  the  place  from  which  he  had 
departed.  There  is  nothing  surely  wanting  to  complete  the 
warrant  of  such  an  individual  for  entering  into  hope  and  hap¬ 
piness  ;  and  yet,  ye  hearers,  it  is  positively  not  more  complete 
than  the  warrant  which  each  and  which  all  of  you  have  at  this 
moment.  To  you,  individually  to  you,  God  is  holding  out  this 


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gift  for  your  acceptance — you  is  lie  beseeching  to  come  again 
into  friendship  with  him.  With  you  is  he  expostulating  the 
cause  of  your  life  and  your  death,  and  bidding  you  choose 
between  the  welcome  offer  of  the  one  and  the  sure  alterna¬ 
tive  of  the  other  if  the  offer  is  rejected.  He  is  now  parleying 
the  matter  with  every  hearer,  and  just  as  effectually  as  if  that 
hearer  were  the  only  creature  in  the  world  to  whom  the 
errand  of  redemption  was  at  all  applicable.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  multitude  of  hearers  by  whom  you  are  surrounded 
that  should  at  all  deaden  the  point  of  its  sure  and  specific  appli¬ 
cation  to  yourself. 

“  The  message  of  the  G-ospel  does  not  suffer,  in  respect  of  its 
appropriateness  to  you,  by  the  ranging  abroad  of  its  calls  and  its 
entreaties  over  the  face  of  the  wdiole  congregation.  The  com¬ 
mission  is  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  every;  and  surely  that  is  the 
same  with  preaching  the  Gospel  to  each.  It  does  not  become  less 
pointedly  personal  in  its  invitation  by  its  being  made  more 
widely  diffusive.  The  dispersion  of  the  Gospel  embassy  over 
the  face  of  the  whole  world  does  not  abate  by  one  single  iota 
either  the  loudness  or  the  urgency  of  the  knock  which  it  is  mak¬ 
ing  at  your  door.  This  is  a  property  which  no  extension  of 
the  message  can  ever  dissipate.  It  cannot  be  shipped  off  either 
in  whole  or  in  part  by  the  missionary  vessel  which  carries  the 
news  and  the  offers  of  salvation  to  other  lands.  Your  minister 
speaks  with  no  less  authority  though  thousands  and  thousands 
more  are  preaching  at  the  same  moment  along  with  him.  Your 
Bible  carries  no  less  emphatic  intimation  to  you,  though  Bibles 
are  circulating  by  millions  over  the  mighty  amplitudes  of  pop¬ 
ulation  that  are  on  every  side  of  you.  God,  through  the  me¬ 
dium  of  these  conveyances,  is  holding  out  as  distinct  an  overture 
to  you,  and  pledging  himself  to  as  distinct  a  fulfillment,  as  if  you 
were  the  only  sinner  he  had  to  deal  with  ;  and  whether  he  be¬ 
seeches  you  to  be  reconciled,  or  bids  you  come  unto  Christ  on  the 
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255 


faith,  that  you  will  not  be  cast  out,  or  invites  you,  weary  and  heavy 
laden,  to  cast  your  burden  upon  him  and  he  will  sustain  it,  or 
sets  forth  to  you  a  propitation  and  tells  you  that  your  reliance 
upon  its  efficacy  is  all  that  is  needed  to  make  it  effectual  to  you 
— be  very  sure  that  all  this  is  addressed  as  especially  to  yourself 
as  if  you  heard  it  face  to  face  by  the  lips  of  a  special  messenger 
from  heaven — that  God  is  bringing  himself  as  near  as  if  he 
named  you  by  a  voice  from  the  skies.  So  that  if  you,  arrested 
by  all  this  power  and  closeness  of  application,  shall  venture 
your  case  on  the  calls  and  the  promises  of  the  Gospel,  there  is 
not  one  call  that  will  not  be  followed  up,  nor  one  promise  that 
will  not  be  fully  and  perfectly  accomplished.’’ 

Despite  the  virus  of  Calvinism  in  this  citation — the  strange 
mixture  of  truth  with  error  which  greatly  mars  its  consistency 
and  beauty — it  nevertheless  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  race, 
though  depraved  through  Adam,  its  natural  head,  gains  more 
in  Christ,  the  second  Adam,  than  it  lost  in  the  first.  It,  though 
in  self-contradiction,  affirms  the  very  doctrine  that  inherited  de¬ 
pravity  does  not  involve  the  guilt  of  those  who  suffer  it — the 
guilt  being  removed  by  redemption  before  they  are  born.  Its 
contradictory  and  inadmissible  implications  are  manifold,  but 
in  it  all  there  is  the  presence  of  the  great  truth  that  in  Christ, 
by  an  act  of  grace,  we  are  placed  on  an  improved  platform  ;  a 
condition  better  than  if  the  first  Adam  had  maintained  his  alle¬ 
giance.  He  affirms  guilt  of  unsinning  beings  by  imputation, 
which  we  deny,  but  he  relieves  them  of  guilt,  before  it  reaches 
them,  by  the  imputation  of  a  righteousness  which  is  another’s. 
This,  also,  we  cannot  receive.  But  it  aims  at  a  truth,  if  it 
reaches  it  illogically  and  unethically.  Many  Arminians  have 
followed  the  general  trend  of  his  position,  simply  interjecting  a 
universal  redemption  against  a  limited  one,  considering  hered¬ 
itary  guilt  by  imputation  and  offsetting  it  by  imputed  jus¬ 
tification;  an  idea  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  fundamental 

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principles  of  the  Arminian  system,  and  foisted  upon  it  by  the 
prevailing  theologizing  of  the  times. 

The  great  bane  of  writings  and  thinkings  on  the  subject  is 
the  attempt  to  preserve  the  mass  of  errors  known  as  Calvinism. 
Now  this  theory  is  broached,  now  that,  each  subversive  of  the 
other,  and  all  outraging  rational  and  moral  intuitions ;  and  so 
the  truth,  which  is  plain  and  simple,  is  sacrificed  to  the  interests 
of  a  system  which  is,  and  must  forever  be,  indefensible.  The 
fact  of  inherited  abnormalcy  is  patent,  and  cannot  be  rationally 
disputed.  Its  guilt  is  unethical  and  impossible.  A  provisional 
redemption,  helpful  to  regeneration  and  rendering  freedom  pos¬ 
sible — as  broad  as  the  hurt — alone  renders  the  propagation  of 
a  race  so  maimed  possible  under  a  just  system.  With  such  a 
provision,  of  universal  application,  no  injustice  is  done  to  any, 
and  the  system  may  be  the  most  beneficent  possible. 

Let  no  one  say  that  this  implies  that  the  primal  sin  and  the 
consequent  fall  of  the  race  in  its  head  are  a  good.  This  is  not 
a  legitimate  inference  from  anything  here  affirmed  or  supposed. 
Sin — in  itself — is  the  greatest  evil  possible  under  a  beneficent 
and  just  administration.  There  is  for  it  no  possible  excuse, 
not  a  single  redeeming  circumstance.  Had  it  not  occurred  there 
could  have  been  nothing  to  mar  the  harmony  of  the  universe 
or  the  happiness  of  beings  callable  of  immortal  blessedness; 
nothing  to  grieve  or  offend  a  holy  and  beneficent  God.  There 
would  have  been  limitations,  restrictions,  discipline ;  these  are 
necessary  incidents  of  any  possible  created  system,  and  espe¬ 
cially  of  the  highest,  in  which  moral  beings  exist.  There  might 
have  been  forms  of  suffering,  coincident  with  sensational  ex¬ 
istence.  These,  for  aught  that  we  know,  are  unavoidable  con¬ 
comitants  of  every  universe  in  which  any  kind  of  enjoyment  is 
possible.  But  under  the  movements  and  government  of  infinite 
love,  save  for  sin,  highest  welfare  would  have  been  secured. 

Sin  alone  darkens  the  universe  and  prevents  the  outcome  of 
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complete  and  perfect  happiness  and  highest  holiness,  which  is 
the  aim  of  creation.  It  mars  all  beauty,  ruins  all  loveliness 
that  it  touches.  The  evil  may  be  beyond  the  power  of  the  In¬ 
finite  to  prevent  or  completely  to  remedy  in  the  best  system. 
We  venture  to  affirm  that  it  is.  In  itself  it  is  unmixed  evil. 
It  serves  no  end  of  goodness.  But  it  is  not  unlimited  evil,  or 
evil  which  may  not  be  overruled  for  good,  or  a  universe  in 
which  it  exists  never  would  have  been  created.  Despite  it  an 
infinite  glory  of  beneficence  and  goodness  will  yet  crown  the 
great  creative  scheme ;  and  its  occurrence  will  be  made  the 
occasion — and,  so  far  as  we  can  perceive,  the  only  way — for 
the  complete  revelation  and  exercise  of  the  most  glorious  of 
the  divine  attributes:  holy,  compassionating,  and  forgiving 
love.  What  is  implied  in  the  statement  above  is  this :  That 
under  the  government  of  mere  law  sin  is  utterly  destructive. 
The  chances  of  any  moral  existence  attaining  its  supreme  wel¬ 
fare  are  restricted  to  utter  and  unswerving  obedience.  This  is 
an  ethical  fact.  Law  provides  no  reprieves  and  gives  no  chance 
for  recovery.  If  obeyed  it  works  life,  with  all  possible  bene¬ 
fits  ;  but  if  disobeyed  it  kills  inexorably.  Lrnder  redemption 
there  is  a  provision  for  pardons.  It  is  thus  that  in  Christ  we 
gain  more  than  we  lost  in  our  natural  head :  a  scheme  of  mercy 
and  helps.  It  is  infinite  love  broadening  the  possibilities  of 
welfare  where  its  perils  are  increased. 

We  close  this  discussion  on  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  so 
called,  with  some  general  reflections  and  deductions. 

By  the  doctrine  as  defined  by  its  advocates  is  meant  guilt 
for  a  nature  which  by  inheritance  tends  to  sin.  We  have  ad¬ 
mitted  such  a  nature,  and  have  contended  that,  while  in  no 
proper  sense  ground  of  guilt,  yet  it  is  an  evil  which  must  be 
remedied  in  order  to  the  soul's  peace  and  moral  purity.  We 
now  add  that  impurities  of  nature  become  ground  of  actual 
guilt  whenever  the  soul  freely  tolerates  their  existence  and 


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volitionally  acquiesces  in  them.  The}-  then  become  personal 
acts,  or  states  with  respect  to  which  the  will  either  directly  acts 
or  criminally  fails  to  act.  In  either  and  both  cases  alike  they 
are  chargeable  to  the  will — as  criminal  defects  or  overt  and 
criminal  causes. 

Inherited  dispositions  or  tendencies — in  themselves  innocent, 
but  working  to  sin  when  not  repressed,  and  more  when  indulged 
— not  only  add  to  their  strength  but  become  deepest  sin.  The 
soul  by  its  own  consent  becomes  filled  with  all  manner  of  moral 
impurities ;  the  whole  inner  nature  is  defiled  and  becomes  a 
fountain  of  all  manner  of  unholiness — the  hotbed  of  the  very 
essence  of  all  sin.  Men  thus  volitionally  multiply  and  inten¬ 
sify  their  own  dejmavity.  This  condition  is  not  to  be  attributed 
to  inherited  tendencies,  alone  considered,  but  directly  to  the 
willful  wrongdoing  of  the  person  himself.  This  self-superin¬ 
duced  moral  loathsomeness  is  spiritual  death,  a  product  of  the 
will  itself.  Depravity  so  superinduced  is  sin  ;  “  the  whole  head 
is  sick,  and  the  whole  heart  faint,”  and  within  there  is  naught 
but  “  wounds,  and  bruises,  and  putrefying  sores.”  This  outcome 
is  a  condition  of  depravity  wrought  by  us,  not  born  with  us. 
To  natural  tendency  it  adds  active  will  concurrence.  A  soul  so 
defiled  is  not  only  morally  abnormal,  with  evil  tendencies  such 
as  come  with  its  nature,  but  it  is  a  soul  which  has  corrupted 
itself  and  rendered  itself  guilty  of  all  its  added  impurities.  It 
is  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  For  its  state  it  cannot  refer  to 
the  sin  of  its  first  parents,  nor  can  it  plead  inability  to  have  it 
otherwise — the  necessitation  of  an  inborn  nature.  It  is  defiled 
and  corrupted  and  filled  with  all  manner  of  unrighteousness 
by  its  own  free  personal  inaction  or  positive  action. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  many  of  those  who  plead  for 
original  guilt  identify  it  in  their  thought  with  this  self-superin¬ 
duced  depravity ;  and  knowing  the  guilt  of  such  a  state  they 
attribute  it,  under  the  general  name  of  original  sin,  to  the  nature 


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259 


which  we  inherit  A  more  radical  and  conspicuous  error  can 
scarcely  be  conceived.  The  nature  has  a  tendency.  The  will 
creates  the  fruitage.  11  Lust  when  it  is  permitted  to  conceive 
bringeth  forth  sin  " — guilt.  No  child  of  man  was  ever  born  in 
this  state;  every  child  of  man  is  born  with  a  tendency  to  it;  it 
is  reached  only  by  personal  consent  and  coaction. 

Can  the  tendency  to  sin  be  resisted  ?  If  not,  then  abnormalcy 
must  issue  in  actual  sin.  But  nothing  that  is  a  necessary  result 
can  be  sin.  Sin  is  not  only  of  the  will,  but  it  is  of  the  will  in 
freedom.  Indeed,  there  is  no  proper  will  act  where  freedom 
does  not  exist.  This  point  will  be  fully  developed  when  we 
come  to  consider  redemptive  helps.  To  suppose  the  native 
tendencies  to  sin  irresistible,  and  then  to  assume  that  they  are 
inherited,  leaves  all  born  in  such  a  condition  already  damned 
- — with  their  birth,  and  before  their  sin,  and  not  on  account 
of  it. 

Does  the  fact  of  a  fallen  nature  modify  the  guilt  of  those  who 
become  actual  transgressors  under  its  inheritance?  That  the 
fallen  nature,  and  all  the  evil  environment  which  encompasses 
life  in  a  fallen  world,  will  be  taken  into  account  in  determining 
the  measure  of  guilt  of  any  and  every  fallen  soul  cannot  be  ques¬ 
tioned.  God  will  judge  righteously.  Any  sin  has  in  it  the 
essence  of  all  sin,  but  there  are  degrees  of  turpitude.  Nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  under  the  government  of  God  no  soul 
of  man  will  have  less  than  perfectly  fair  dealing.  No  soul  will 
be  held  as  guilty  that  is  not  itself  guilty ;  no  disabilities,  not 
self-superinduced,  will  be  laid  to  its  charge.  If  there  are  miti¬ 
gating  circumstances  they  will  not  fail  to  be  valued  at  their  full 
worth.  Infinite  love,  which  differs  nothing  from  infinite  justice 
regulated  by  unerring  wisdom,  holds  the  balance.  There  will 
be  no  mistake ;  nothing  of  mitigating  circumstance  left  out, 
nothing  of  overweening  severity  permitted.  The  hand  that, 
holds  the  scale  is  the  Father’s  hand,  tempered  by  the  added 


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intercessions  of  a  Redeemer's  tenderness.  But  guilt  is  guilt,  and 
neither  love  nor  mercy  can  change  it. 

On  this  subject — that  of  race  depravity,  inherited  tendencies 
to  sin — before  finally  dismissing  it,  we  have  this  one  thing  fur¬ 
ther  to  say : 

It  is  not  an  unforeseen  accident.  The  plan  which  included 
it  was  adopted  with  perfect  foresight.  It  was  fully  provided  for 
by  a  prearranged  scheme  of  redemption.  The  misfortunes  that 
have  overtaken  the  race  under  it  are  more  than  compensated. 
Evils  have  arisen,  and  evils  will  remain,  but  they  are  such  as 
are  incident  to  any  moral  system,  under  any  possible  regula¬ 
tions  ;  we  may  rest  assured  that  they  are  the  very  least  that 
would  have  occurred  under  any  possible  moral  system,  and  the 
benefits  are  the  greatest  that  could  be  secured  by  any  system. 
This  we  are  constrained  to  believe  if  we  retain  the  belief  that 
God  is  infinite  in  goodness.  The  two  propositions  stand  or  fall 
together. 

A  question  arises,  Are  there  no  circumstances  in  which  pun¬ 
ishment  for  sins  may  be  remitted?  Does  divine  justice  inex¬ 
orably  require  the  forfeit  in  all  cases  ?  Or  may  circumstances 
exist  in  which  justice  will  accept  less  than  its  claim,  or  be  con¬ 
tent  with  something  else  than  punishment  ? 

There  are  two  very  dissimilar  theories  which  answer  these 
questions  in  precisely  the  same  manner,  namely,  that  justice,  in 
all  cases  of  sin,  necessitates  punishment — is  inexorable,  unap¬ 
peasable. 

The  first  we  shall  examine  is  put  forth  by  a  school  of  Uni- 
versalists.  It  holds  that  pardon  is  an  unknown  and  impossible 
fact ;  that  law  and  penalty  are  so  reciprocal  that  the  violation 
contains  the  punishment,  as  cause  contains  effect — that  they 
are  absolutely  inseparable ;  that  in  the  moral,  precisely  as  in 
the  natural,  the  law  carries  its  retributions  with  it,  which  can 
no  more  be  arrested  or  turned  aside  than  the  burn,  when  the 


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261 


hand  is  inserted  in  the  blaze — strangulation,  when  the  body  is 
submerged  in  water.  They  deny  permanent  or  perpetual  pen¬ 
alty  as  cruel  and  unmeaning,  but  hold  that  it  will  always  re¬ 
main  until  it  has  exhausted  itself;  it  will  never  be  lifted  or 
remitted.  Each  sin  has  its  exact  retribution,  which  follows  it 
as  the  shadow  the  substance ;  but  as  the  sin  is  limited  so  the 
punishment  is,  and  will  end  as  a  term  of  imprisonment  does. 
The  sinner  may  emerge  from  punishment,  but  not  until  it  has 
had  its  last  farthing.  It  is  as  when  a  man  lacerates  himself — 
the  act  of  laceration  is  the  sin,  the  laceration  is  the  punishment, 
which  terminates  when  the  wound  heals.  Some  who  entertain 
this  theory  of  punishment  suppose  that  all  sin  is  punished  dur¬ 
ing  this  life.  Others  suppose  that  some  punishments  will  extend 
into  the  next  world,  and  may  indefinitely  be  extended  by  the 
continuance  of  sin,  but  ultimately  the  spirit  of  disobedience 
must  be  broken — sin  cannot  longer  maintain  the  fruitless  strug¬ 
gle  against  law,  and  the  last  sin  and  punishment  will  expire 
together,  and  so  evil  will  disappear  from  the  universe.  Those 
holding  this  theory  do  not  necessarily  ignore  Christ  as  a  Sav¬ 
iour.  They  allow  that  in  a  certain  sense  he  saves,  not,  indeed, 
from  the  punishment  due  to  sins  already  committed,  by  remis¬ 
sion  of  the  penalty,  but  nevertheless  he  does  save  by  winning 
the  sinner  from  his  sinful  practices,  and  so  stopping  the  river 
of  his  sin  stops  the  river  of  his  possible  punishment. 

We  cannot  deny  that  this  is  a  beautiful  philosophy,  or, 
rather,  speculation,  but  we  are  at  a  loss  to  ascertain  how  it  is 
called  a  Christian  scheme.  It  certainlv  is  the  furthest  removed 

t/ 

from  the  teachings  of  Christ.  Its  faults  are  manifold.  Claim¬ 
ing  to  be  beneficent,  it  expunges  mercy  from  the  nature  of  God  ; 
claiming  to  be  Christian,  it  denies  both  the  word  and  work  of 
Christ ;  as  a  philosophy,  it  is  incognizant  of  some  and  contra- 
dictive  of  other  most  important  facts  ;  as  a  theology,  it  is  pagan 

rather  than  Christian ;  it  has  no  place  for  a  distinction  between 

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mistakes  and  sins,  injuries  and  punishments.  Boasting  of  its 
salvation,  it  in  fact  has  neither  salvation  nor  Saviour.  Its 
God  is  not  the  God  of  revelation;  its  Christ  is  a  travesty  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  as  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  “  it  has  not  so  much 
as  heard  whether  there  be  any  Holy  Ghost ;  ”  the  repentance 
of  which  the  Bible  makes  so  much  is  vain,  its  promised  pardon 
impossible,  its  new  birth  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 

The  second  is  the  view  held  by  Calvinists ;  namely,  that  all 
sins  are  either  punished  in  the  person  of  the  transgressor  or  in 
the  person  of  Christ,  the  vicarious  substitute  of  the  elect.  This 
theory  agrees  with  the  one  already  examined  only  in  the  one 
point  of  the  inevitability  of  punishment.  We  will  reserve  its 
examination  until  we  come  to  discuss  theories  of  the  atonement. 

Standing  over  against  the  idea  that  every  sin  must  inevitably 
be  punished  is  the  theory  that  no  sin  need  be  punished,  that  it  is 
matter  of  mere  prerogative  with  God  whether  he  will  punish  or 
pardon,  whether  he  will  vindicate  law  or  be  indifferent  to  it. 
It  wholly  denies  the  need  of  atonement  on  the  one  hand  or 
punishment  on  the  other.  It  may  or  may  not  admit  the  justice 
of  penal  sanction  to  the  divine  law,  but  asserts  the  right  in  God 
to  vacate  such  sanctions  on  mere  prerogative;  that  there  is 
nothing  either  in  his  nature  or  relations  to  being  that  obliges 
him  to  punish.  In  the  ultimate  the  theory  is  equivalent  of  de¬ 
nying  the  view  that  there  should  be  any  distinction  in  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  obedience  and  disobedience — any  difference  in  the  re¬ 
sult  between  sin  and  holiness.  The  idea  subverts  the  divine 
government.  Under  it  God  has  no  law,  only  advice ;  maintains 
no  authority,  manifests  no  moral  character.  If  he  punish  occa¬ 
sionally  he  becomes  capricious,  partial,  and  unjust;  if  not  at 
all  he  indicates  indifference  to  ethical  distinctions. 

He  not  only  surrenders  right  to  obedience,  but  in  the  act  of 
abdication  of  authority  declares  that  he  has  no  ethical  nature, 
that  he  knows  no  difference  between  good  and  evil,  and  will 


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263 


treat  them  in  no  different  manner ;  for  if  he  forbear  to  punish 
sin  on  prerogative  what  distinction  is  possible  between  it  and 
holiness?  There  is  no  distinction  in  the  treatment,  for  that 
were  punishment,  which  is  denied  to  exist ;  the  disobedient  and 
obedient  to  all  appearance  are  regarded  alike.  There  can  be  no 
difference  in  the  feeling  toward  them,  or  the  exact  similarity  of 
the  treatment  is  dissimulation,  falsehood,  hypocrisy,  duplicity. 
To  suppose  either  the  possibility  that  God  should  feel  toward 
wrong  as  he  does  toward  right,  toward  sin  as  he  does  toward 
holiness,  or  that  he  should  treat  one  as  he  does  the  other  in  the 
ultimate,  is  to  asperse  his  nature,  to  debase  his  throne,  and  re¬ 
move  the  only  bulwarks  from  the  universe.  The  idea  finally 
vacates  all  moral  distinctions,  reduces  holiness  and  sin  to  unity, 
practically  if  not  theoretically,  and  abolishes  the  distinction  be¬ 
tween  angels  and  fiends.  By  all  the  reasons  we  have  for  sup¬ 
posing  God  to  be  holy  and  to  love  holiness  we  are  compelled  to 
believe  that  he  must  feel,  and  express  in  his  sovereign  action, 
an  eternal  hatred  against  sin,  an  eternal  love  of  righteousness. 
His  love  no  less  than  his  justice,  his  whole  ethical  nature,  pro¬ 
tests  against  the  idea  that  he  should  be  either  indifferent  or  re¬ 
miss  in  the  punishment  of  sin ;  and  the  entire  moral  universe, 
both  from  nature  and  interest,  joins  in  the  protest,  since  not  to 
punish  the  evildoer  is  a  premium  on  crime ;  is  to  leave  all  being 
unprotected  and  a  prey.  The  caprice  which  gives  up  punish¬ 
ment  in  order  to  vacate  hell,  while  it  looks  like  an  amiable  com¬ 
passion,  in  fact  is  an  atrocious  cruelty,  which  turns  the  whole 
universe  into  a  hell  and  vacates  heaven  itself.  The  mercy 
which  lets  the  culprit  go  encourages  his  crime  and  opens  a  flood 
of  curse  which  whelms  all  beings. 

There  is  a  modification  of  this  view  which  has  much  more 
the  semblance  of  truth.  It  recognizes  the  justice  of  punish¬ 
ment  and  the  absolute  necessity  that  it  should  be  exerted  in 
every  case  of  obstinate  sin,  but  supposes  repentance  a  suf- 


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ficient  reason  for  pardon.  The  sole  office  of  punishment  is 
to  work  repentance,  and  when  that  is  achieved  its  function 
ceases,  justice  demands  nothing  more,  love  demands  respite. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  most  of  the  objections  which  bear 
against  the  former  view  are  obviated  by  this,  but  it  may  not 
therefore  be  inferred  that  it  is  true.  It  may  be  admitted  that 
the  whole  system  of  chastisements — semipenal  sufferings  con¬ 
sequent  upon  sin  during  probation — is  designed  to  induce  re¬ 
pentance,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  repentance  is  the  sole  suf¬ 
ficient  ground  for  pardon.  It  may  be  a  necessary  means  to  an 
end,  and  at  the  same  time  not  be  the  adequate  means,  and  it  does 
not  appear  that  it  is  always  and  under  all  circumstances  effectual. 

If  by  repentance  is  meant  simply  regret  of  an  act  because  of 
actual  or  prospective  penal  suffering  on  account  of  it,  then 
repentance  must  necessarily  supervene  in  every  case,  since  no 
being  likes  to  suffer,  or  fails  to  regret  an  act  which  superin¬ 
duces  suffering.  The  theory,  with  this  definition  of  repentance, 
would  vacate  punishment,  not  only  in  some  instances,  but  in¬ 
variably  ;  in  effect  it  would  abrogate  or  make  void  all  penal 
sanctions.  Under  it  there  would  be  but  a  feeble  protest,  and 
no  protection  whatever  against  sin. 

If  repentance  means  something  much  more  radical  than  this, 
as  a  thorough  sense  of  the  guilt  of  sin,  a  hearty  and  sincere 
renunciation  of  it,  a  recoil  of  the  sinner’s  heart  against  it,  deep 
and  honest  sorrow  for  its  commission,  a  longing  after  pardon 
and  reconciliation  to  God — a  radical  reaction  of  the  soul  from 
wrong  to  right,  we  are  not  prepared  to  say  that  such  a  repent¬ 
ance  would  not  secure  pardon,  nor  are  we  certain  that  it  would 
under  all  circumstances ;  we  think  it  could ;  but  there  are  grave 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  either  a  positive  or  negative  answer, 
and  the  supposition  that  it  would  does  not  by  any  means  show 
that  repentance  is  the  chief  ground  of  pardon,  as  will  appear  on 
reflection. 


Punishment. 


265 


Those  who  assert  that  it  would  not,  among  whom  are  all  our 
standards,  take  the  ground  chiefly  because  the  idea  seems  to 
weaken,  if  not  entirely  do  away  with  the  need  of  atonement.  In 
this  we  think  they  are  mistaken.  They  answer  to  it  also  that 
the  deepest  and  most  thorough  repentance  does  not  do  away  with 
the  fact  of  the  sin  and  with  its  desert  of  punishment ;  that  a 
life  of  the  most  perfect  holiness  and  a  heart  of  the  purest  love 
do  not  obliterate  the  fact  of  a  misdeed ;  that  the  justice  which 
claims  perfect  obedience  cannot  be  defrauded  of  its  claim  by  an 
imperfect  obedience,  supplemented  with  sorrow,  however  deep, 
and  reformation,  however  thorough ;  that  the  one  sin  must  be 
answered  for  according  to  the  letter  of  the  law.  Most  of  these 
allegations  are  indubitable ;  but  of  some  of  them  we  confess 
doubt.  That  the  ends  of  justice  would  necessarily  be  defrauded 
in  such  a  case  we  are  not  clear,  nor  are  we  clear  that  they  w'ould 
not.  The  only  ends  of  justice  are  the  security  of  rights  and  the 
good  of  being,  and  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  nature  toward 
sin — the  punishment  of  sin,  or  the  remission  of  punishment, 
must  be  subordinate  to  these  ends.  What  might  be  possible  is 
known  only  to  the  Infinite. 

There  is  a  view  of  justice  much  more  rigorous  than  this, 
which  holds  that  its  demand  is  penalty,  that  it  considers  noth¬ 
ing  but  its  claim  to  suffering.  We  reject  it. 

Nothing  is  plainer  than  that  he  will  forego  suffering,  will 
pardon — remit  punishment — and  this  without  wrong  to  justice  ; 
and  the  condition  is  repentance  and  faith  in  an  atonement,  W e 
shall  see  what  that  atonement  is  by  and  by. 

No  man  knows  that  sin  can  be  forgiven  without  the  atone¬ 
ment.  And  no  man  knows  that  if  a  true  repentance  were  pos¬ 
sible  without  an  atonement  sin  might  not  be  pardoned.  What 
is  recorded  is  that  there  is  an  atonement,  without  which  there 
is  no  forgiveness,  but  through  which  there  is  forgiveness  to  the 

penitent  and  believing.  Now  the  atonement  satisfies  the  claim 
18  6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


of  justice  otherwise  than  by  working  repentance  in  the  hearts 
of  men  has  been  a  matter  of  much  perplexing  discussion  ;  but 
that  it  does  become  effective  by  working  repentance,  and  in  a 
way  that  is  contentful  to  justice,  will  appear  in  the  progress  of 
*  the  discussion. 

The  real  answer,  as  we  think,  in  the  above  case — the  case 
supposed — is  one  which  neither  exists  nor  can  exist  without  the 
intervention  of  help,  and  that  help  comes,  in  fact,  only  through 
an  atonement.  Whether  it  might  have  come  in  another  way 
we  are  not  informed.  We  are  distinctly  informed  that  sin 
cuts  off  the  soul  from  the  fountain  of  all  spiritual  life  and 
leaves  it  dead,  and  so  leaves  it  helpless  in  itself,  and  that 
help  comes  to  it  only  because  of  and  through  the  atonement. 
This  is  enough.  We  have  neither  right  nor  competency  to 
■determine  what  might  have  been.  It  is  revealed  to  us  that 
through  the  atonement  we  may  repent,  and  if  we  repent  we 
shall  be  pardoned.  This  is  God’s  method  of  saving  men  from 
the  power  and  punishment  of  sin. 

In  attempting  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  pardon  under  the 
divine  government  a  careful  discrimination  must  be  made 
between  the  two  departments  of  natural  and  moral  government 
— departments  extremely  distinct,  but  only  intimately  con¬ 
nected  and  inseparably  interblended.  Examination  will  show 
that  while  in  the  one  there  is  possibility  neither  of  sin  nor  par¬ 
don,  in  the  other  there  is  room  for  both.  The  failure  to  make 
the  distinction  has  greatlv  confused  the  thinking  of  manv  wise 
and  generally  sound  investigators. 

The  department  of  nature  is  carried  forward  by  the  operation 
of  certain  definite,  invariable,  and  necessitating  forces  acting 
in  accordance  with  these  laws.  They  are  the  appointment  of 
God ;  but,  except  in  the  case  of  providential  intervention,  are 
never  interfered  with — they  stand  fast  forever.  If  one  of  these 
laws  be  transgressed  an  answering  retributive  blow  immediately 


Punishment. 


267 


follows,  and  inevitably.  These  effects  are  called  punishments ; 
but  the  least  reflection  will  show  that  in  many  cases  the  word 
implies  nothing  of  the  nature  of  moral  retribution — has  nothing 
of  the  nature  of  punishment  for  moral  fault,  since  the  blow  fol¬ 
lows  unintended  and  accidental  transgression  precisely  in  the 
same  manner  as  willful  violation.  The  laws  reigning:  in  and 

o  o 

over  nature  know  no  moral  distinctions — go  forward  to  their 
end  wholly  irrespective  of  moral  causes.  It  is  a  government 
administered  wholly  irrespective  of  moral  exigencies.  Under 
it  precisely  the  same  thing  happens  to  the  evil  and  the  good. 
Its  “  sun  rises  alike  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust ;  ”  its  earth¬ 
quakes  and  storms  and  pestilences  ravage  alike  the  habitations 
of  the  righteous  and  the  wicked — except  in  extraordinary  cases 
which  occasionally  arise  along  the  ages  for  great  moral  pur¬ 
poses.  It  knows  nothing  of  pardon.  Its  blow  inexorably 
falls  alike  upon  the  evil  and  the  good,  the  penitent  and  the 
obdurate. 

It  includes  moral  beings,  but  is  not  administered  over  them 
as  moral,  but  only  so  far  as  they  exist  in  the  plane  of  the 
natural,  and  in  that  plane  it  considers  no  moral  questions ;  for 
there  are  none.  Every  moral  being  belongs  also  to  the  depart¬ 
ment  of  nature,  and  exists  within  the  sphere  of  natural  law  so 
far  forth  as  he  is  invested  with  a  nature.  If,  as  a  nature,  he 
comes  into  collision  with  natural  law,  he  comes  under  its 
effects,  and  they  are  not  suspended  or  modified  because  of  bis 
exalted  moral  worth.  And  when  morally  he  violates  a  natural 
law,  as  when  he  knowingly  sins  as  to  his  nature  Or  any  other 
nature,  the  natural  effect  will  inevitably  follow,  even  after 
tbe  sin  as  to  its  proper  punishment  is  forgiven;  thus  showing 
that  the  effect  which  follows  in  the  nature  is  not  properly  penal, 
though  a  sin  was  committed.  The  same  act  against  nature 
which  in  one  would  be  sin,  because  a  known  and  willful  viola¬ 
tion  of  a  natural  law,  would  not  be  sin  in  another  who  did  not 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


know  or  feel  the  obligation  of  the  law.  The  natural  deed 
would  be  the  same  in  both  cases,  but  the  moral  deed  would  not 
be  the  same.  But  in  both  cases  precisely  the  same  natural 
effects  would  follow,  showing  that  the  effect  is  not  moral  retri¬ 
bution,  but  merely  effect  under  natural  law. 

But  there  is  a  moral  department  in  which  retributive  forces 
operate  wholly  along  moral  lines,  and  whose  movements  are 
determined  wholly  by  moral  causes,  and  never  spring  from  nat¬ 
ural  causes.  The  retributive  blow  is  evoked  by  the  criminal 
action  of  a  will  and  emanates  from  the  direct  action  of  an  aveng¬ 
ing  will,  and  not  from  a  natural  law.  Here  the  retribution  is 
purely  moral  and  penal  in  its  cause  and  source.  Let  us  see 
how  this  is  and  that  it  is. 

A  moral  being  is  one  who  knows  his  law,  and  in  knowing  it 
knows  himself  to  be  free  in  regard  to  its  obedience  or  disobedi¬ 
ence,  and  who  for  some  cause  feels  himself  to  be  under  obliga¬ 
tion  to  keep  it. 

As  natural  and  as  moral  two  classes  of  effect  may  follow — 
effects  natural  and  moral.  He  exists  under  the  two  laws,  and 
often  these  are  both  operative  in  the  same  act,  or  resultant  of 
the  same  act.  Let  us  illustrate :  The  law  of  his  nature  requires 
that  he  should  be  temperate  in  his  habits,  the  moral  law  makes 
the  same  requisition.  If  he  shall  violate  this  law,  ignorantly  or 
knowingly,  one  no  more  than  the  other,  the  effect  in  his  nature 
must  inevitably  follow — loss  of  health,  impaired  power,  prema¬ 
ture  death.  These  are  nature’s  consequences,  administered  by 
the  inevitable  operation  of  necessary  forces.  But  suppose  the 
violation  to  have  been  knowingly  perpetrated  in  resistance  to 
the  demand  of  conscience  and  of  God,  now  there  arises  another 
and  altogether  different  fact — a  fact  of  guilt,  ill  desert,  not 
known  to  natural  law,  but  wholly  within  the  sphere  of  the 
moral — a  fact  which  calls  forth,  not  simply  impaired  health,  etc., 
but  the  displeasure  of  God,  and  adds  the  sense  of  this  as  spe- 


Punishment. 


2  GO 


cific  punishment  for  the  fault  of  will  or  for  the  moral  fault. 
This  fact  of  the  displeasure  of  God  with  the  act  as  criminal 
transgression  was  not  at  all  expressed  in  the  effects  produced 
in  the  natural  plane,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  those  effects  tran¬ 
spire  whether  there  has  been  moral  fault  or  not ;  but  this  fact  of 
displeasure  is  possible  only  where  there  has  been  moral  fault, 
and  has  regard  only  to  that  The  evil  to  the  nature  resulted 
from  the  physical  act  of  intemperance,  and  nature  is  the  avenger 
in  her  own  realm.  The  deeper  evil  that  is  in  the  will  trans¬ 
gresses  a  higher  law,  and  God  is  the  avenger  by  direct  punish¬ 
ment — a  punishment  which  is  only  possible  when  there  is  such 
a  fault  of  will,  and  which  he  declares  consists  in  personal  ban¬ 
ishment  of  the  transgressor  from  his  presence,  or  consignment 
to  remorse  and  anguish. 

The  sin  act  consists  in  the  willful  disobedience  of  the  moral 
law,  but  as  the  moral  law  enjoins  the  observance  voluntarily  of 
the  natural  law  the  sin  act  violates  also  the  natural  law.  The 
natural  law  was  ordered  for  the  good  of  being,  and  when  ob¬ 
served  the  good  of  being  is  subserved,  and  this  is  so  whether 
the  observance  be  voluntary  or  involuntary,  and  vice  versa ,  the 
infraction  harms  the  good  of  being,  and  so  whether  voluntary 
or  involuntary. 

Its  observance  is  enjoined,  therefore,  as  moral  duty.  To 
neglect  the  injunction  is  sin,  and  the  effect  is  harm,  and  it  was 
to  prevent  the  effect  that  the  injunction  was  made;  herein  is 
the  reason  of  the  law  to  prevent  harm.  Now,  the  evil  which 
the  law  prohibits  is  not  the  punishment  which  is  enacted  to 
prevent  its  violation ;  for  that  there  is  another  punishment 
superadded  by  the  lawgiver;  let  no  one  imagine,  therefore, 
that  the  natural  effects  of  sin,  which  denote  the  evil  it  is  in  it¬ 
self,  are  the  same  as  its  judicial  punishment. 

When  a  sin  has  been  conceived  in  the  mind  it  becomes  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  treatment  of  law.  The  law,  laying  its  imperative  on 

6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


the  will  in  its  inmost  momenta  is  violated  in  the  intent  to  vio¬ 
late  its  commands.  The  intent  is  violation,  is  injury  of  the 
rights  of  sovereignty,  and  is  injury  of  the  moral  nature  of  the 
subject — is  sin  against  its  law.  It  harms  the  person  from  within, 
marring  his  purity,  and  it  evokes  harm  from  without,  calling 
forth  retribution.  When  sin  has  been  translated  into  action 
against  law  it  effects  harm  objectively,  for,  so  far  as  it  is  external 
act,  it  hurts  the  person  or  other  beings;  it  is  hurt  and  can 
never  cease  to  have  been  hurt ;  no  power  can  annihilate  that 
fact;  but  that  hurt,  whether  subjective  or  objective,  whether 
of  the  sinner  himself  or  other  being,  is  no  part  of  the  proper 
punishment  of  sin ;  but  it  is  that  in  part,  if  not  in  whole,  for 
which  the  punishment  is  due,  is  of  the  substance  of  the  wrong 
if  not  the  entirety  of  it — that  to  prevent  which  punishment  was 
instituted.  This  will  explain  why  it  is  that  sufferings  here  in 
this  life  are  not  punishment,  and  why  it  is  that  where  sin  is 
pardoned  the  sufferings  which  they  occasion  do  not  cease. 
The  pardoned  drunkard  does  not  recover  his  health  or  avert 
the  death  his  dissipation  has  superinduced ;  they  remain  after 
his  punishment  has  been  remitted.  The  evil  effects  of  objec¬ 
tive  sin  are  in  nature  and  inevitable — they  are  operated  by  nat¬ 
ural  law  and  cannot  be  averted ;  they  are  for  reformatory  uses : 
showing  sin  to  be  an  evil,  but  there  is  a  much  more  serious  evil 
threatened,  but  delayed. 

The  physical  evil  and  moral  wretchedness  which  follow  upon 
our  sinful  conduct,  but  really  as  consequent  to  our  constitution 
and  relations,  are  not  strictly  of  the  nature  of  punishment, 
though  such  is  a  very  common  view.  That  sin  brings  misery 
is  in  the  order  of  the  divine  constitution  of  things.  It  is  not 
clear  that  there  could  be  such  a  constitution  of  moral  beings 
that  suffering  would  not  follow  upon  sin.  Indeed,  the  contrary 
is  manifest  But  what  so  follows  as  a  natural  result,  though  in 

an  order  of  things  divinely  constituted,  is  not  strictly  penal. 

6 


Punishment. 


271 


Sucli  naturally  consequent  evil  may  have  in  the  divine  plan  an 
important  ministry  in  the  economy  of  moral  government.  But 
punishment  strictly  is  a  divine  infliction  of  penalty  upon  sin  in 
the  order  of  a  judicial  administration. 

Following  all  the  evils  that  sin  inflicts,  both  upon  the  sinner 
himself  and  upon  the  good  of  other  beings,  is  the  judgment, 
when  he  must  give  account  of  these — when  their  evil  will  appear 
and  when  his  punishment  proper  will  begin.  The  degradation 
and  shame  and  sorrows  of  sin  accompanying  its  performance,  so 
far  from  having  been  its  punishment  proper,  will  be  in  part  the 
very  things  which  will  be  to  be  punished.  This  is  the  uniform 
teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  which  locate  punishment  beyond  the 
judgment  and  in  eternity- — it  is  banishment  from  God  and  the 
misery  of  personal  remorse.  It  is  not  a  suffering  included  in 
nature,  inflicted  by  the  operation  of  natural  law ;  but  is  a  suf¬ 
fering  emanating  from  eternal  sovereignty  for  a  fault  of  will — for 
essential  wickedness — committed  during  probation  and  never 
repented  of.  Rebukes  of  conscience  and  the  distresses  which 
flow  into  the  consciousness  sequent  upon  sin,  like  physical  suf¬ 
fering  during  probation,  must  be  included  among  premonitory 
chidings  whose  end  is  reform  rather  than  judicial  inflictions. 
They  hint  what  punishment  will  be  ;  a  great  element  of  their 
poignancy  is  their  keenness  of  warning,  their  apprehension  of 
certain  and  coming  doom.  Nothing  is  more  conspicuous  in 
consciousness  than  the  feeling  that  punishment  is  something 
awaiting  us  in  the  future  or  beyond  death.  The  ominous  finger 
keeps  ever  pointing  to  that  mysterious  realm,  and  the  secret 
voice  is  “  not  now  but  forever.”  We  are  kept  constantly  aware 
that  we  must  face  our  deeds,  secret  and  public — that  an  inquest 
will  come — that  justice  will  hold  the  balance,  and  that  a  dread¬ 
ful  blow  will  follow  crime.  Revelation  joins  conscience  and 
thunders  the  warning  on  every  page — tells  us  of  longsuffering 
patience  now,  but  of  terrible  retribution  after  a  wThile.  One’s 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


blood  almost  curdles  when  he  reads  the  dreadful  precursive 
words,  “Then  shall  the  Son  of  man  sit  upon  the  throne  of  his 
glory,”  with  the  graphic  delineation  of  a  final  judgment  found 
in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew’s  gospel.  It  may  be 
ventured  that  there  is  no  single  fact  more  universally  and  unin- 
termittingly  characteristic  of  human  consciousness  than  this 
spontaneous  feeling  of  accountability  following  this  life.  The 
grave  acquires  its  terrors  almost  wholly  from  this  apprehension. 
Few  are  restrained  from  deeds  of  evil  from  any  fear  of  conse¬ 
quences  that  are  limited  to  this  life,  where  the  temptation  is 
strong  and  opportunities  of  concealment  supposed  to  be  good. 
But  all,  unless  utterly  blinded  and  hardened,  dread  that  inward 
monitor,  “Yet  thou  shalt  answer.”  Conscience  reechoes  and 
gives  emphasis  to  the  appalling  words.  Through  the  open 
grave  the  inward  eye  beholds  approaching  vengeance.  It  is  in 
vain  that  we  attempt  to  lay  the  frightful  apparition — we  cannot. 
Nor  is  it  a  horror  of  uncertainty  as  to  what  the  retribution  will 
be.  Much  is  hidden  ;  but  one  thing  is  plain — it  looms  upon  us 
like  a  pharos  from  some  far-off  dismal  shore ;  we  behold  it,  a 
signal  of  warning;  it  tells  of  danger,  of  a  storm  of  wrath  which 
awaits  us,  a  punishment  that  will  burst  upon  us  in  fury,  dark¬ 
ening  and  desolating  our  immortality.  Such  is  the  doctrine  of 
punishment  disclosed  in  human  consciousness  when  unper¬ 
verted,  and  such  is  the  doctrine  found  in  the  sacred  page. 
“ The  wages  of  sin  is  death” — separation  from  the  loving  pres¬ 
ence  and  fellowship  of  Grod.  The  tribunal  at  which  answer  is 
to  be  made,  and  from  which  sentence  is  to  be  pronounced,  and 
retributive  penalties  to  be  executed,  we  locate  beyond  mundane 
time.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  this  harmony  of 
the  divine  teachings  in  the  book  of  his  revelations  and  in  the 
constitution  of  his  moral  creature  point  to  a  fact.  That  fact  is 
that  the  present  life  is  a  probationary  period,  in  which  there 

are  premonitory  reproofs  designed  to  convert  and  cure  our 

6 


Punishment. 


2  73 


tendencies  to  evil,  and  that  final  account  awaits  ns,  when  dne 
punishment  will  be  inflicted. 

Now,  the  question  is,  May  these  penalties  be  averted,  or  will 
moral  law  go  to  its  mark  even  as  natural  law  does?  We  have 
seen  that  natural  law  is  inexorable  ;  that  it  admits  of  no  excuse ; 
that  it  never  for  any  reason  turns  aside  from  its  mark ;  that 
the  transgression  and  its  evil  effect  are  eternally  united — the 
one  concomitant  of  the  other ;  the  flame  must  burn,  the  pon¬ 
derous  wheel  grind  to  powder  whatever  comes  in  its  way ;  that 
here  forgiveness  is  absolutely  unknown.  Is  it  so  in  the  moral 
as  well  ?  Some  so  teach.  Surely  the  Scriptures  are  filled  with 
the  contrary  idea.  If  there  is  anything  made  plain  it  is  that, 
while  moral  fault  is  the  greatest  of  all,  in  fact,  the  only,  and 
while  possible  consequences  here  are  the  most  grave  and  tre¬ 
mendous,  involving  the  entire  being  in  curse  and  ruin  for  eter¬ 
nity,  yet  that  there  is  a  possibility  of  pardon — not  a  pardon 
that  will  annul  the  natural  effects  of  sin,  but  a  pardon  that  will 
bring  to  an  end  the  moral  effects.  God,  in  the  administration 
of  the  moral,  will  forgive ;  in  the  administration  of  nature  he 
will  not.  There  is  a  reason  for  the  difference— why  nature  will 
not  relent  We  do  not  forget  that  God  is  the  author  of  nature — 
that  nature  is  but  a  mode  of  his  operation.  We  mean,  there¬ 
fore,  only  this,  that  there  is  a  reason  why  God  in  nature  is 
uniform ;  why  he  does  not  turn  back  upon  himself  to  interfere 
with  the  established  order ;  to  prevent  evil  resulting  from  it 
would  be  to  annul  established  order.  To  suspend  gravitation 
whenever  it  would  hurt,  or  any  other  agency  whenever  it  might 
harm,  would  be  to  take  away  the  quality  of  uniformity,  or,  in 
effect,  abolish  an  order  of  nature  entirely.  The  benefits  of  an 
established  and  permanent  order  are  too  obvious  to  need  de¬ 
fense. 

It  is  essentially  important  to  a  morally  responsible  being 
that  he  should  be  in  a  system  whose  order  is  permanent,  that  he 


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may  be  able  to  know  with  certainty  wbat  will  be  tbe  effects  of 
his  conduct ;  that  he  may  thus  know  the  importance  of  obe¬ 
dience  to  law ;  in  no  other  way  can  he  do  this.  He  must  learn 
the  good  of  obedience  by  feeling  and  seeing  the  evil  of  diso¬ 
bedience.  He  must  have  assured  data  upon  which  to  proceed. 
If  nature  turned  aside  at  every  whim  of  his  he  could  have  no 
certainty  of  moral  distinctions.  There  would  be  no  difference 
between  wisdom  and  folly,  justice  and  injustice,  truth  and  false¬ 
hood.  Nature  gives  emphasis  to  them.  By  thus  being  able  to 
know  the  effects  of  his  conduct  because  of  the  permanence  of 
the  laws  that  determine  them  he  is  enabled  to  know  what  is 
good  and  what  is  evil,  what  will  harm  and  what  will  benefit, 
and,  therefore,  to  feel  the  imperative  of  moral  law  when  it  com¬ 
mands  the  good.  Thus,  too,  he  is  enabled  to  see  the  good  and 
evil  in  himself — to  feel  the  sense  of  approval  when  he  chooses 
the  good,  and  the  sense  of  guilt  when  he  chooses  the  evil,  and 
to  understand  the  justice  of  punishment  when  he  transgresses 
law.  How  else  could  he  possess  a  moral  character  ?  That  is,  a 
character  for  which  he  is  responsible,  a  personal  character. 

For  these  will  acts,  which  make  him  an  agent  subordinating 
known  and  uniform  forces  with  freedom  and  with  a  knowledge 
of  the  result,  he  is  held  to  account.  They  visibly  determine 
whether  he  is  good  or  evil,  and  determine  how  a  just  and  benef¬ 
icent  sovereign  shall  regard  and  treat  him. 

Is  there  the  same  reason  for  invariability  of  result  in  the 
moral  department  ?  When  guilt  has  accrued  by  breach  of  law 
:  must  the  effect  follow  here  as  there  ?  So  we  would  conclude ; 
but  we  see  in  fact  that  there  is  a  difference  in  several  respects. 
First,  the  effect  does  not,  as  in  the  former  case,  immediately  fol¬ 
low,  and  never  obviously,  in  fact,  follow  during  this  life.  This 
difference  is  sufficient  to  give  rise  to  the  supposition  that  pos¬ 
sibly  the  principle  of  the  administration  may  be  different ;  since 

the  penalty  is  not  an  inseparable  concomitant  of  the  offense 
6 


Punishment.  275 

gives  rise  to  tlie  idea  that  it  may  possibly  not  occur  at  all  or  be 
in  some  way  averted.  "V\That  is  thus  suggested  as  possible  we 
find  the  Scriptures  abundantly  teach  is  actual,  in  that  they  show 
that  the  moral  penalty  of  sin  may  be  remitted  even  when  the 
natural  effect  is  not  prevented;  in  other  words,  the  sin  itself 
may  be  pardoned,  its  proper  penalty  restrained,  though  its  tem¬ 
porary  evils  may  not  be  hindered. 

Xor  does  this  imply  any  more  uncertainty  or  looseness  in  the 
administration  of  moral  than  natural  law.  It  supposes  a  differ¬ 
ent  principle,  but  not  a  less  fixed  and  inexorable  end.  In 
the  natural  realm,  effects  immediately  and  inevitably  follow 
their  causes.  In  the  moral  realm  the  effect  of  the  divine  dis¬ 
pleasure  immediately  and  inevitably  follows  sin ;  but  the  final 
penal  blow  that  results  from  the  displeasure  is  suspended  until 
judgment  or  until  probation  is  ended ;  and  it  is  a  fixed  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  administration  that  during  that  interval,  for  reasons 
which  will  appear  further  on,  on  certain  defined  conditions,  the 
suspended  penalty  may  be  averted — may  never  transpire ;  and 
yet  the  validity  and  authority  of  moral  law  not  be  surrendered. 
The  principle  demonstrates  that  moral  law  is  not  administered 
mechanically,  as  natural  law  is,  and  the  reason  of  the  differ¬ 
ence  is  found  in  the  essential  difference  of  the  subjects ;  nor 
does  the  difference  imply  anything  of  indeterminateness  or 
looseness  or  uncertainty  in  the  law  or  administration.  In  the 
first  case  the  lawgiver  finds  no  sufficient  reason  for  variability 
or  delay — sees  it  best  that  effects  should  immediately  and  uni¬ 
formly  follow  their  causes  without  interference  under  most  cir¬ 
cumstances  ;  in  the  other  case  he  sees  that  gravest  interests 
would  be  subserved  by  the  enactment  of  laws  the  administra¬ 
tion  of  whose  penalties  should  not  be  mechanical  or  corporate 
and  immediate,  but  should  be  delayed,  and  on  certain  conditions 
be  relaxed  or  remitted  entirely- — he  determining  what  the  con¬ 
ditions  shall  be.  They  must  be  such,  however,  as  will  not  dis- 

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honor  his  character  by  connivance  at  disobedience ;  such  as  will 
not  imply  indifference  to  the  sanctity  of  law ;  such  as  will  not 
undermine  the  authority  of  his  government ;  such  as  will  not 
peril  the  rights  or  interests  of  any  of  his  creatures ;  such  as  will 
be  in  consonance  with  highest  wisdom,  love,  and  jnstice,  and 
such  as  will  subserve  the  best  interests  of  his  universe.  If  such 
conditions  may  exist  he  may  extend  pardon.  That  such  condi¬ 
tions  do  exist  is  one  proof,  in  that  he  publishes  to  his  human 
children  that  he  will  “forgive  iniquity,  transgression,  and  sin.” 
What  the  principles  of  mercy  are,  and  what  the  grounds,  will 
appear  as  we  advance. 

Growing  out  of  the  universal  consciousness  of  sin  and  the  in¬ 
eradicable  belief  that  sin  deserves  punishment,  and  the  appre¬ 
hension  of  danger  which  conscience  keeps  alive  in  every  human 
breast,  and  the  feeling  of  need  of  pardon  and  reconciliation 
with  God — a  feeling  which  is  either  permanent  or  occasional 
with  every  human  being,  and  the  abiding  sense  of  helplessness 
which  we  find  within  us,  the  question  is  as  old  as  man  and  as 
widespread,  “What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?  ”  It  is  impossible 
to  escape  it.  Only  the  most  abandoned  can  make  light  of  it. 
Their  levity  is  at  once  the  fruit  of  their  extreme  moral  debase¬ 
ment  and  the  proof  of  their  imminent  peril.  That  there  should 
be  honest  difference  in  the  answer  is  not  surprising. 

The  Scriptures  undertake  to  answer  the  question.  In  them 
Christ  is  set  forth  as  the  Saviour  of  men.  Some  on  one  ground 
and  some  on  another  decline  to  accept  the  answer.  Among  those 
who  admit  the  authority  of  the  revelation  there  emerges  a  dif¬ 
ference  of  understanding  as  to  what  the  teaching  is.  They  do 
not  differ  so  much  as  to  the  fact  that  Christ  is  therein  set  forth 
as  a  Saviour,  or  as  to  the  fact  that  he  is  in  some  true  sense  a 
Saviour,  as  upon  the  question  in  what  sense  he  saves  and  how 
he  saves. 

There  are  many  theories  if  we  make  each  slight  difference  de- 

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277 


note  a  theory.  If  we  group  under  one  theory  all  these  varieties 
which  have  a  fundamental  unity,  there  are  but  three,  one  of 
which  takes  the  name  of  the  moral  influence  theory ;  the  other 
two  the  common  name  of  atonement  theories,  which  are  respect¬ 
ively  called  the  satisfaction  and  the  governmental  theories.  Un¬ 
der  some  one  of  these  three  all  theories  which  in  any  way  ascribe 
salvation  to  Christ  may  be  classed. 

Dr.  Miley  says,  after  a  very  careful  analysis,  and  we  think  he 
is  correct,  “  In  a  strict  and  scientific  sense  there  are  but  two  the¬ 
ories  of  atonement.  We  have  seen  how  many  in  popular  enu¬ 
meration  are  reducible  to  the  one  theory  of  moral  influence. 
Others  are  so  void  of  essential  facts  that  they  hold  no  rightful 
place  as  theories.  Nor  is  the  scheme  of  moral  influence  in  any 
strict  sense  a  theory  of  atonement,  because  it  neither  answers  to 
the  real  necessity  in  the  case  nor  admits  an  objective  ground  of 
forgiveness  in  the  mediation  of  Christ. 

“  Nor  can  there  be  more  than  two  theories.  This  limita¬ 
tion  is  determined  by  the  law  of  necessary  difference  between 
the  necessity  for  an  atonement  and  the  nature  of  the  atone¬ 
ment  for  answering  to  that  necessity.  This  fact  we  have,  that 
the  vicarious  sufferings  of  Christ  are  an  objective  ground  of 
the  divine  forgiveness.  There  is  a  necessity  for  such  a  ground. 
His  sufferings  are  an  atonement  only  as  they  answer  to  this 
necessity.  Hence  the  nature  of  the  atonement  is  determined 
by  the  nature  of  its  necessity.  Now,  this  necessity  must  be 
either  (1)  in  the  requirements  of  an  absolute  justice  which  must 
punish  sin,  or  (2)  in  the  rectoral  office  of  justice  as  an  obliga¬ 
tion  to  conserve  the  interests  of  moral  government.  There 
can  be  no  other  necessity  for  an  atonement  as  an  objective 
ground  of  forgiveness.  Nor  does  any  scheme  of  a  real  atone¬ 
ment  in  Christ  either  represent  or  imply  another.  Thus  there 
is  room  for  two  theories,  but  only  two.  There  is  place  for  a 
theory  of  absolute  substitution,  according  to  which  the  re- 


278 


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demptive  sufferings  of  Christ  were  strictly  penal,  and  the  ful¬ 
fillment  of  an  absolute  obligation  of  justice  in  the  punishment 
of  sin.  This  is  the  theory  of  satisfaction,  and  answers  to  a 
necessity  in  the  first  sense  given.  There  is  also  place  for  a 
theory  of  conditional  substitution,  according  to  which  the  re¬ 
demptive  sufferings  of  Christ  were  not  the  punishment  of  sin, 
but  such  a  substitute  for  the  rectoral  office  of  penalty  as  renders 
forgiveness,  on  proper  conditions,  consistent  with  the  require¬ 
ments  of  moral  government.  This  answers  to  a  necessity  in 
the  second  sense  given,  and  accords  with  the  deeper  principles 
of  the  governmental  theory.  The  truth  of  atonement  must  be 
with  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  theories.”* 

"We  shall  best  systematize  the  discussion  by  first  giving  at¬ 
tention  to  the  moral  influence  theory.  Strictly  speaking  this  is 
not  a  theory  of  atonement.  It  is  rather  an  account  of  how  men 
become  reconciled  to  God  in  a  manner,  through  Christ,  which 

sets  aside  his  atonement  work.  But  because  it  is  a  theorv  of 

%/ 

reconciliation  and  salvation  by  means  of  certain  influences 
which  flow  from  Christ  it  has  generally  been  ranked  as  a 
theory  of  atonement. 

The  theory  is  held  by  theologians  and  semitheologians  and 
moralists  of  such  views  on  correlated  points  that  it  will  be 
difficult  to  make  a  statement  which  would  be  acceptable  to 
the  entire  class.  There  is  extreme  difference  among  them  as 
to  the  nature  of  sin ;  how  it  affects  the  soul,  the  question  of 
regeneration,  the  person  of  Christ,  the  authority  of  revelation, 
and,  indeed,  the  entire  circle  of  fundamental  theological  ideas 
— some  occupying  the  lowest  plane  of  Socinianism  and  others 
embracing  many  of  the  essentials  of  high  orthodoxy.  The 
point  of  their  agreement  is  thus  put  by  Dr.  Miley:  “The  me¬ 
diation  of  Christ  fulfills  its  redemptive  offices  in  the  economy 
of  human  salvation  through  the  influence  of  its  own  lessons 

*  Atonement  in  Christ,  pp.  100,  101. 


6 


Punishment. 


279 


and  motives,  as  practically  operative  upon  the  soul  and  life 
of  men.  Such  is  the  office  of  his  incarnation,  if  admitted; 
of  his  example,  teaching,  miracles,  suffering,  death,  resurrec¬ 
tion,  ascension.  By  the  lessons  of  truth  so  given  and  en¬ 
forced  it  is  sought  to  enlighten  men;  to  address  to  them 
higher  motives  to  a  good  life;  to  awaken  love  in  grateful 
response  to  the  consecration  of  so  worthy  a  life  to  their  good ; 
to  lead  them  to  repentance  and  piety  through  the  moral  force 
of  such  a  manifestation  of  the  love  of  God ;  to  furnish  them  a 
perfect  example  in  the  life  of  Christ,  and  through  his  personal 
influence  to  transform  them  into  his  likeness.”* 

Dr.  A.  A.  Dodge  thus  puts  it :  “  The  general  view  that  the 
great  end  of  the  death  of  Christ  was  to  produce  a  moral  im¬ 
pression  upon  the  hearts  of  sinners,  and  thus  lead  to  their 
moral  and  spiritual  reformation,  has  been  taught  in  various 
forms  by  many  successive  teachers,  and  has  been  uniformly 
rejected  as  a  heresy  by  the  Church.”  Hagenbachf  says  that 
“  Socinus  defined  the  object  of  Christ’s  death  positively  as  fol¬ 
lows  :  (1)  The  death  of  Christ  was  an  example  set  before  men 
for  their  imitation.  (2)  It  was  designed  to  confirm  the  prom¬ 
ises  made  by  God,  thus  giving  assurance  of  the  forgiveness  of 
sins.  (3)  It  was  the  necessary  means,  preparatory  to  his  res¬ 
urrection,  by  which  he  entered  into  glory.  ‘  Christ  died  that 
through  death  he  might  attain  to  resurrection,  from  which 
arises  the  strongest  confirmation  of  the  divine  will  and  the  most 
certain  persuasion  of  our  own  resurrection  and  attainment  to 
eternal  life.’  ”  J  Thus,  according  to  Socinus,  the  designed 
effect  of  Christ's  death  is  wholly  a  subjective  impression  upon 
the  minds  of  sinners,  to  stimulate  them  to  emulate  his  heroic 
virtue ;  to  prove  and  to  illustrate  the  love  of  God  and  his  will- 


*  Atonement  in  Christ,  pp.  121-123  ;  Professor  Bruce,  The  Humiliation  of  Christ , 


pp.  326-328. 
f  Vol.  ii,  p.  360. 


t  Cat.  Racov.,  p.  265. 


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ingness  to  forgive  sin  upon  the  repentance  of  the  sinner ;  to 
confirm  the  truth  of  all  the  doctrines  he  had  taught  and  of  the 
promises  which  God  had  made  through  the  prophets  or  through 
himself ;  and  by  giving  opportunity  for  his  resurrection  from 
the  dead  to  demonstrate  the  fact  of  a  future  life  and  to  prove 
and  illustrate  the  future  resurrection  of  his  people.  The  mod¬ 
ern  theories  of  Jowett,  Maurice,  Bushnell,  Young,  etc.,  differ 
from  that  of  Socinus  only  in  being  rhetorical  where  his  is  logi¬ 
cal,  confused  where  his  is  clear,  and  narrow  and  partial  where 
his  is  comprehensive.  The  lines  between  truth  and  error  with 
regard  to  this  central  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  were  already  defi¬ 
nitely  drawn  in  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  at  the  very 
opening  of  the  Scholastic  era.  As  to  the  entire  essence  of  the 
doctrine,  Anselm  then  stood  precisely  where  the  whole  Church 
of  Christ  in  all  its  branches  has  ever  since  stood ;  and  the  famous 
Abelard  taught  in  every  essential  respect  the  doctrine  main¬ 
tained  by  Socinus,  and  by  Maurice,  Bushnell,  and  Young,  in 
our  own  day.  Baur,  as  quoted  by  Hagenbach,*  says  :  “  Thus 
the  two  representatives  of  Scholasticism  in  its  first  period,  when 
it  developed  itself  in  all  its  youthful  vigor,  Anselm  and  Abelard, 
were  directly  opposed  to  each  other  with  respect  to  the  doctrines 
of  redemption  and  atonement.  The  one  considered  the  last 
ground  of  it  to  be  the  divine  justice,  requiring  an  infinite 
equivalent  for  the  infinite  guilt  of  sin  ;  that  is,  a  necessity 
founded  in  the  nature  of  God.  The  other  held  it  to  be  the 
free  grace  of  God,  which,  by  kindling  love  in  the  breast  of 
man,  blots  out  sin,  and  with  sin  its  guilt.” 

To  the  same  effect  Bushnell  says:  “The  true  and  simple 
account  of  his  [Christ’s]  sufferings  is  that  he  had  such  a  heart 
as  would  not  suffer  him  to  be  turned  away  from  us,  and  that 
he  suffered  for  us  even  as  love  must  willingly  suffer  for  its 
enemy.” f  “Vicarious  sacrifice  was  in  no  way  peculiar  to 

*  Vol.  ii,  pp.  47,  48.  f  Vicarious  Sacrifice ,  p.  108. 


Punishment. 


281 


Christ  save  in  degree.”*  “The  Holy  Spirit  works  in  love, 
as  Christ  did,  and  suffers  all  the  incidents  of  love — compassion, 
wounded  feeling,  sorrow,  concern,  burdened  sympathy,  violated 
patience — taking  men  upon  him,  to  bear  them  and  their  sins, 
precisely  as  Christ  himself  did  in  his  sacrifice.”  f  He  “simply 
came  into  the  corporate  state  of  evil  [sum  total  of  natural  con¬ 
sequences  of  sin],  and  bore  it  with  us — faithful  unto  death  for 
our  recovery.”  ^  He  “  came  simply  to  be  the  manifested  love  of 
God.”  §  “  Christ  became  incarnate  to  obtain  moral  power  ”  (that 
which  belongs  to  a  developed  character).  “The  understand¬ 
ing  is  to  obtain  through  him,  and  the  facts  and  processes  of 
his  life,  a  new  kind  of  power,  namely,  moral  power— the  same 
that  is  obtained  by  human  conduct  under  human  methods.  It 
will  be  divine  power  still,  only  it  will  not  be  attribute  power. 
That  is  the  power  of  his  idea  [that  is,  original  power,  intrinsic 
to  the  divine  nature].  This  new  power  is  to  be  the  power 
culminative,  gained  by  him  among  men  as  truly  as  they  gain 
it  with  each  other.  Only  it  will  turn  out  in  the  end  to  be  the 
grandest,  closest  to  feeling,  most  impressive,  most  soul-renovat¬ 
ing,  and  spiritually  sublime  power  that  was  ever  obtained  in 
this  or  anv  other  world.”  ;| 

To  the  same  effect,  also,  Young  writes  over  and  over  again 
in  many  passages  exquisitely  beautiful,  and  true  also  when 
accepted  as  an  expression  of  one  side  of  the  truth- — an  ines¬ 
timably  precious  side  too :  “  The  infinite  Father  in  boundless 
pity  looked  down  upon  his  undutifnl  children,  and  yearned  to 
rescue  them  by  regaining  their  hearts  and  drawing  them  back 
to  allegiance  and  to  peace.  With  Godlike  mercy  he  unveiled 
all  that  was  possible  of  divine  purity,  and  truth,  and  beauty, 
and  sweetness,  and  lovingness,  and  compassion.  He  humbled 
himself,  descended  to  the  level  of  his  creatures,  walked  among 

*  Vicarious  Sacrifice ,  p.  107.  f  Ibid.,  p.  74.  %  Ibid.,  p.  514. 

%Ibid.,  p.  141.  |  Ibid.,  p.  18. 

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them,  spoke  to  them  face  to  face,  and  appealed,  as  lie  still 
continues  to  appeal,  to  their  hearts  through  the  gentleness,  the 
tenderness,  the  wisdom,  the  meekness,  the  patience,  the  suffer¬ 
ings,  the  tears,  the  blood,  and  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ. 

“  The  distinction  here  is  radical  and  fundamental.  The  sac¬ 
rifice  was  not  offered  up  by  men  at  all  or  by  a  substitute  in 
their  room ;  and  it  was  not  required  to  appease  God’s  anger, 
or  to  satisfy  his  justice,  or  to  render  him  propitious.  The  sac¬ 
rifice  was  not  offered  by  men  and  for  sin,  in  order  that  sin 
might  be  forever  put  down  and  rooted  out  of  human  nature. 
This  stupendous  act  of  divine  sacrifice  was  God’s  instrument 
of  reconciliation  and  redemption,  God’s  method  of  conquering 
the  human  heart  and  of  subduing  a  revolted  world  and  attach¬ 
ing  it  to  his  throne — pure  love,  self-sacrificing  love,  crucified, 
dying  love.” 

This  theory  has  much  truth  in  it,  and  much  greatly  neglected 
truth.  It  presents  a  view  of  the  case  which  is  both  important 
and  greatly  obscured  in  the  generally  prevailing  expositions  of 
the  subject.  But  it  is  certainly  a  defective  view.  It  presents 
only  one  class  of  the  requirements  of  the  case.  It  provides 
for  a  part  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  man’s  deliverance 
from  sin,  but  wholly  ignores  another  part.  It  shows  how  the 
work  of  Christ  is  related  to  man,  but  utterly  denies  its  relations 
to  God.  It  is  a  mode  of  saving  from  sinning,  but  not  from 
guilt  of  sins.  It  knows  nothing  of  pardon.  It  denies  that 
there  is  any  impediment  in  God’s  nature  or  government  to  his 
favorable  treatment  of  the  sinner  if  he  will  but  cease  sinning. 
Christ’s  only  work  is  to  reconcile  the  sinner  to  God,  not  God  to 
the  sinner.  The  propitiation  is  of  the  sinner,  not  of  resenting 
holiness.  Calvary  pleads  with  man,  not  with  God. 

This  defective  view  finds  its  great  power  in  the  highly  ex¬ 
aggerated  and  utterly  impossible  implications  of  the  penal 
atonement  theory.  It  dwells  on  these,  and  makes  them  appear, 


Punishment. 


283 


as  they  really  are,  a  revolting  travesty  of  the  divine  character, 
and  by  a  natural  law  of  mind  as  well  as  matter  rebounds  to 
the  opposite  extreme.  The  theory  it  rejects  locates  the  con¬ 
spicuous  if  not  all  the  impediments  on  God’s  side,  and  so  ren¬ 
ders  the  atonement  a  method  of  placating  God — a  plan  by 
which  to  extinguish  his  wrath  and  render  him  willing  to  exert 
his  abundant  power  to  save  some  or  many  or  all.  This  it  re¬ 
gards,  and  justly  so,  as  slanderous  against  his  character,  and  in 
direct  contradiction  of  his  word.  The  device  by  which  the 
placation  is  effected,  the  transfer  of  punishment  which  his 
wrath  demands  to  his  own  innocent  Son,  it  sees  to  be  mere 
cruelty  and  high  crime,  and  spurns  it  as  atrocious.  Stung  with 
resentment,  it  flies  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  locates  all  the 
impediments  in  the  sinner  himself,  and  sees  in  the  atonement 
no  other  function  than  to  remove  these,  and  so  exhausts  its 
office  in  its  subjective  effects  on  the  sinner’s  mind.  It  is  called 
the  moral  influence  theory.  There  is  a  bar  to  salvation  which  it 
does  not  bring  into  the  view,  namely,  the  bar  of  public  justice. 
If  the  sinner  is  saved  it  must  be  on  grounds  which  will  make 
his  salvation  not  at  the  sacrifice  of  justice.  A  ground  must 
exist  for  it  of  sufficient  merit  to  make  it  right,  conservative  of 
public  welfare  to  forgive.  It  is  doubtful  whether  an  agency 
which  will  confine  itself  exclusively  to  reform  will  do  that.  If 
it  would  be  effectual  in  some  cases  it  might  weaken  the  impres¬ 
sion  of  the  evil  of  sin  and  impair  the  sacredness  of  law  over 
wide  surfaces  of  mind.  This  the  guardian  of  public  welfare 
could  not  do  without  injustice.  It  partakes  of  the  same  fault, 
but  in  a  much  less  degree,  which  was  found  to  mar  the  theories 
of  optional  forgiveness  and  forgiveness  upon  the  assurance  of 
repentance ;  but  it  is  much  more  supposable  than  the  theory  of 
which  it  is  a  rebound.  Mere  reform  under  a  just  government 
is  not  ground  for  pardon,  however  superinduced.  There  are 
other  parties  interested  and  other  rights  to  be  considered  be- 


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sides  the  administration  and  culprit  subject,  and  righteousness 
must  respect  those  as  much  as  these.  It  is  not  a  mere  question 
what  sympathy  for  the  criminal  will  dictate  or  what  love  in 
the  sovereign  will  prompt.  There  is  a  question  of  justice  which 
cannot  be  set  aside.  Love  in  its  deepest  momenta  includes  it. 

Arising  in  a  system  of  theology  so  diverse  from  the  orthodox 
faith,  and  so  antagonistic  itself  to  the  orthodox  atonement,  it 
was  inevitably  polemic,  and  both  defensively  and  offensively  in 
its  methods.  This  naturally  arose,  in  the  first  part,  from  the 
fact  that  the  Scriptures,  in  what  seems  their  obvious  sense, 
positively  affirm  an  objective  atonement  in  Christ ;  and  the 
second  part,  from  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  atonement  then 
most  prevalent  was  open  to  serious  valid  objections,  and  espe¬ 
cially  to  very  plausible  ones. 

But  little  attempt  was  made  to  build  up  the  new  doctrine 
on  direct  scriptural  proofs.  The  main  attempt  was  to  set 
aside  the  Scripture  truth  alleged  in  support  of  the  Church  doc¬ 
trine.  In  its  endeavor  the  new  exegesis  had  little  regard  for 
well-established  laws  of  hermeneutics.  It  dealt  freely  in  cap¬ 
tious  criticism,  and  in  the  most  gratuitous  and  forced  interpreta¬ 
tions.  The  exigency  of  the  case  required  such  a  method. 
Scripture  facts  and  utterances  are  so  clear  and  emphatic  in  the 
affirmation  of  an  objective  atonement  in  the  mediation  of  Christ 
as  the  only  and  necessary  ground  of  forgiveness  that  the  new 
scheme  found  in  such  a  method  its  only  possible  defense 
against  the  crushing  force. 

Within  the  sphere  of  reason  the  new  scheme  was  boldly  of¬ 
fensive  in  its  method.  Here  it  had  more  apparent  strength, 
and  could  be  plausible  even  when  not  really  potent.  But  any 
real  strength  bore  rather  against  a  particular  form  of  redemp¬ 
tive  doctrine  than  against  the  truth  itself.  The  array  of  objec¬ 
tions,  wrought  in  all  the  vigor  of  rhetoric  and  passion,  is  nu¬ 
gatory  against  the  true  doctrine. 


Punishment. 


285 


Beyond  the  ground  of  valid  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  sat¬ 
isfaction  Socinianism  finds  a  sphere  of  plausible  objection  to 
the  atonement  itself.  A  fluency  of  words,  even  with  little 
wealth  or  potency  of  thought,  will  easily  declaim  against  its 
unreason,  its  injustice,  its  aspersion  of  the  divine  goodness,  its 
implications  of  vindictiveness  in  God,  its  subversion  of  moral 
distinctions  and  obligations.  Yery  gifted  minds  have  given  to 
such  declamation  all  possible  force.  It  has  the  force  of  plausi¬ 
bility  in  false  assumptions  and  issues,  but  is  impotent  in  the 
light  of  truth.* 

The  ground  of  rejecting  this  theory  is,  not  that  it  has  no 
truth  in  it,  but  that  it  is  a  fractional  and  distorted  truth  allied 
with  a  fundamental  and  dangerous  error.  It  is  true  that  the 
atonement  is  a  scheme  of  love — that  a  large  part  of  its  effica¬ 
ciousness  in  saving  men  is  the  influence  of  the  teachings  of 
Jesus,  and  of  his  life  of  self-sacrifice  drawing  them  away  from 
their  sins.  His  doctrines,  his  pure  and  beautiful  precepts,  his 
spotless  example,  his  heroism,  his  moral  elevation,  his  tran¬ 
scendence  in  every  respect,  his  unexampled  love  for  humanity, 
his  brave  defense  of  the  truth,  his  courage  even  unto  death, 
the  detestation  kindled  against  his  enemies,  the  indefinable 
feeling  that  somehow  he  was  superhuman,  his  gentleness,  his 
poverty,  his  identification  with  the  lowly,  his  manger  at  the 
beginning  and  his  cross  at  the  end  of  his  earthly  life — these 
things  have  gone  into  the  heart  of  the  world,  and  have  moved 
and  do  move  it  with  strange  and  mysterious  power.  It  is  true 
that  souls  attracted  solely  by  the  charm  of  this  wonderful  life 
to  humble  penitence  and  faith  would  be  saved.  It  is  true  that 
to  this  very  end,  to  draw  men  unto  him,  Christ  came  into  the 
world  ;  that  it  is  thus  that  he  saves.  It  is  no  wonder  that, 
feeling  the  power  of  this  great  truth,  and  shocked  at  the  trav¬ 
esty  of  God  contained  in  the  prevailing  creed,  men  were  ready 

*  Atonement  in  Christ ,  pp.  123-125. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


to  accept  this  as  the  true  theory  of  atonement.  It  was  and  is 
in  these  respects  less  objectionable  than  that  which  it  rejected. 
But,  after  all,  it  was  but  half  a  truth,  and  for  that  reason  must 
be  rejected  as  a  theory  of  the  atonement.  It  utterly  ignores 
essential  truths  of  the  system.  It  is  false  in  its  negations  to 
the  general  tenor  of  revelation ;  false  especially  to  all  the  piac- 
ular  terms,  emptying  them  of  their  meaning ;  false  generally  to 
the  doctrine  of  sin ;  false,  as  a  rule,  in  its  Christology ;  false 
in  its  entire  view  of  the  nature  and  necessity  of  the  atonement 
Specifically:  (a)  It  gives  no  adequate  view  of  justice  in  the 
punishment  of  sin.  (b)  It  fails  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the 
death  of  Christ  as  an  objective  ground  of  atonement,  doing 
away  with  its  necessity  as  a  ground  of  forgiveness  and  reducing 
it  to  simple  martyrdom.  ( c )  It  robs  him  of  his  exclusive  rank 
as  Saviour,  and  makes  him  but  one  of  many  saviours.  ( d)  It 
necessarily  retires  a  large  part  of  revelation,  or  so  explains  it  as 
to  do  violence  to  all  just  rules  of  interpretation,  (e)  It  is  a  philos¬ 
ophy  rather  than  a  scriptural  theology  in  a  case  in  which  reve¬ 
lation  alone  is  competent  to  speak.  The  result  is  that  its  tend¬ 
ency  is  unfavorable  to  faith,  and  the  truth  that  is  in  it,  by 
reason  of  negations  and  positive  errors,  is  deprived  of  practi¬ 
cal  power.  These  are  grave  charges,  but  such  as  no  one  can 
doubt  who  has  studied  the  theory  and  noted  its  working. 

It  ought  to  be  said,  also,  that  the  half  truth  that  is  in  it,  and 
which  it  claims  as  peculiarly  its  own,  is  in  no  other  sense  pe¬ 
culiar  to  it  but  in  this,  that  in  it  the  fragment  is  taken  for  the 
whole.  The  true  scriptural  theory  of  atonement  includes  all 
that  is  true  and  valuable  in  it,  and  adds  those  other  rejected, 
but  essential  truths,  without  which  all  virtue  would  go  out  of 
the  very  truths  which  the  imperfect  theory  contains. 

But  if,  as  we  have  seen,  there  are  penalties  against  sin,  and 

if  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  thev  cannot  be  remitted  on 

%/ 

mere  prerogatives  without  impairing  the  integrity  of  the  divine 


Punishment. 


287 


government,  and,  indeed,  without  a  total  abdication  of  bis 
ethical  nature,  and  all  moral  distinctions  ;  and,  if  for  the  same 
and  additional  reasons  they  cannot  be  remitted  on  the  ground 
of  any  repentance  or  reformation  the  transgressor  may  effect 
in  himself ;  and,  if  any  moral  influences  which  may  be  exerted 
on  him  helpful  to  his  repentance  and  reformation  must  be  in¬ 
effectual  to  constitute  an  adequate  ground  of  forgiveness ;  if, 
in  fact,  there  are  hindrances,  in  either  the  nature  of  God  or 
his  rectoral  relations,  which  must  be  removed  out  of  the  way 
before  he  can  extend  pardon  to  the  guilty ;  and,  if  the  Bible 
makes  constant  reference  to  a  redeeming  scheme  meeting  these 
needs,  and  setting  forth  the  grounds  and  conditions  of  pardon 
— if  there  is  a  Saviour  and  salvation,  it  becomes  a  most  im¬ 
portant  question :  What  is  that  redeeming  scheme,  and  what 
are  the  conditions  of  that  salvation? 

It  may  not,  indeed,  be  important  to  know  the  philosophy  of 
it ;  possibly  there  are  mysteries  in  it  we  cannot  fully  compre¬ 
hend  ;  but  some  things  we  need  to  know,  and  some  things  seem 
to  be  plainly  revealed.  There  is  a  scheme  of  salvation  set  up 
in  the  Scriptures.  No  one  can  become  acquainted  with  the 
sacred  writings  without  discovering  this.  It  is  also  clear  that 
to  become  actual  partakers  of  the  benefits  of  that  scheme  we 
need  to  know  some  of  its  cardinal  facts  and  doctrines. 

If  it  were  an  arrangement  whereby  salvation  was  procured 
for  us  irrespective  of  any  coaction  of  ours — salvation  here  or 
hereafter ;  something  which  God  has  done,  or  is  to  do,  which 
will  ultimately  bring  us  out  all  right ;  if  it  had  no  relation  to 
our  lives  now,  or  relations  of  self-working  processes ;  if  we 
were  simply  in  some  way  to  become  recipients  of  it  by  some 
kind  of  irresistible  and  sovereign  grace,  without  reference  to 
our  thinking  or  seeking,  it  might  not  then  be  important  that 
we  should  be  concerned  to  know  anything  about  it,  or  we 
might  be  indifferent  whether  this  or  that  theory  is  true;  but 


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if,  on  the  contrary,  it  has  been  revealed  because  it  is  important 
for  us  to  have  certain  information  about  it ;  if  there  are  certain 
facts  in  it  which  are  to  have  great  practical  influence  on  our 
conduct  as  well  as  thinking ;  and  if  the  salvation  it  brings  is 
conditional  on  our  acceptance  of  it,  then,  indeed,  it  becomes 
important  that  we  should  in  some  measure  understand  it.  If 
especially  it  is  to  be  a  practical  power  in  the  world,  and  the 
measure  of  its  power  depends  upon  a  right  understanding  of  it 
— if,  as  a  truth,  it  is  to  influence  and  guide  men — if  it  is  to 
build  on  the  earth  a  divine  kingdom  by  the  force  of  its  ideas, 
then  more  than  ever  we  need  to  know  what  it  is. 

It  is  not  something  that  we  are  to  excogitate  from  our  inner 
consciousness ;  it  is  not  a  human  philosophy,  it  is  a  revelation. 
It  is  God’s  scheme  for  saving  men.  It  is  a  divine  plan  for 
bringing  men  back  to  himself.  It  is  a  way  whereby  pardon 
may  be  offered  to  the  guilty,  whereby  the  depraved  may  be 
restored  to  holiness,  whereby  the  kingdom  of  God  may  be  set 
up  in  the  earth,  whereby  sinners,  even  the  whole  race,  may 
attain  to  everlasting  life — the  atonement,  the  redemption,  the 
reconciliation — the  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ. 

The  fact  that  the  Scriptures  do  constantly  teach  that  men 
may  be  saved  from  both  the  guilt  and  punishment  of  sin,  and 
that  they  as  constantly  represent  that  they  are  saved,  if  at  all, 
by  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus,  is  accepted  by  all  the 
theories  we  are  about  to  examine. 

They  differ,  not  as  to  the  fact,  but  as  to  the  theory — the 
grounds  and  mode.  If  the  matters  in  which  they  agree  are 
important,  the  matters  in  which  they  disagree  are  also  of  great 
importance. 

The  first  theory  in  the  order  in  which  we  prepare  to  treat 
these  is  known  as  the  penal  atonement  or  satisfaction  theory. 

It  rests  upon  the  assumption  or  postulate  that  the  law 

claims  of  punishment  must  be  satisfied  in  atonement — that 
6 


Punishment. 


289 


punishment  when  due  must  be  inflicted,  and  that,  therefore, 
Christ,  in  becoming  the  Redeemer  of  men  from  the  pollution 
and  guilt  of  their  sins,  suffered  the  very  penalty  of  the  law 
which  was  due  them,  and  thus  satisfied  the  penal  demands  of 
justice.  But  as  the  law  demands  perpetual  and  perfect  obedi¬ 
ence  the  theory  consistently  holds  yet  further,  not  simply  that 
he  suffered  the  identical  penalty  due  the  sins  of  his  people, 
but  he  also  rendered  a  perfect  obedience  to  the  entire  law 
claim  upon  them,  and  thus  completely  satisfied  or  extinguished 
the  entire  demands  of  justice  in  their  case.  The  atonement 
is  thus  a  complete  satisfaction  to  all  the  claims  of  justice. 

That  we  may  not  seem  to  do  injustice  to  the  theory  by 
what  might  be  considered  a  partisan  statement  or  a  forced 
construction,  we  will  give  here  a  full  and  carefully  prepared 
statement  of  one  of  its  most  accredited  and  distinguished 
expounders.  This  we  do  in  preference  to  scrap  quotations, 
which,  taken  apart  from  their  connections,  often  do  injustice  to 
authors. 

Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  says : 

“  The  orthodox  doctrine  provides  exhaustively  for  satisfying 
all  these  conditions  of  redemption  at  once  by  the  one  act  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  in  vicariously  suffering  the  penalty  of  the  broken 
law  as  the  substitute  of  his  people.  His  motive  was  infinite 
love.  The  precise  thing  he  did  was  to  suffer  the  penalty  of 
the  law  as  the  substitute  of  his  people.  His  direct  intention 
was  to  satisfy  justice  in  their  behalf,  and  thus  secure,  on  legal 
terms,  their  salvation.  In  doing  this  he  also  necessarily  satis¬ 
fied  the  natural  demand  of  the  sinner’s  conscience  for  expiation, 
and  subdued  his  sullen  alienation,  and  removed  his  distrust  of 
God,  by  the  supreme  exhibition  of  divine  love  made  on  the 
cross.  At  the  same  time,  and  by  the  same  means,  he  gave  to 
the  whole  moral  universe  the  highest  conceivable  demonstration 

of  God’s  inexorable  determination  to  punish  all  sin,  just  be- 

6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


cause  he  did  so  punish  it  even  in  the  person  of  his  Son. 
Prompted  by  the  infinite  love  common  to  the  Father  and  him¬ 
self,  he  voluntarily  assumed  all  of  our  legal  responsibilities. 
He  obeyed  and  suffered  as  our  substitute.  His  sufferings  were 
vicarious.  It  expiated  the  guilt  of  sin.  It  fulfilled  the  demands 
of  law.  It  propitiated  justice.  It  reconciled  us  to  God.  It 
actually  secures  our  salvation ,  and  does  not  simply  put  us  in  a 
salvable  state.  According  to  the  terms  of  the  covenant  of 
grace  the  impetration  of  redemption  by  Christ  is  infallibly  con¬ 
nected  with  its  application  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Not  being  the 
payment  of  a  pecuniary  debt,  which  ipso  facto  liberates,  but  a 
vicarious  penal  satisfaction,  it  remains,  as  far  as  we  are  con¬ 
cerned,  as  a  matter  of  right,  in  the  hands  of  God  to  grant  its 
benefits  to  whom  he  pleases,  when  and  on  whatsoever  terms 
he  pleases.  His  granting  it  in  any  case  is  an  act  of  sovereign 
grace.  But  since  Christ  acted  by  covenant,  he  has  acquired  by 
his  performance  of  the  stipulated  conditions  a  strictly  legal  title 
to  the  salvation  of  all  for  whom  he  acted.  As  between  God  and 
the  Mediator,  the  claim  in  right  is  perfect.  As  between  God 
and  the  Mediator  and  sinful  man,  it  is  all  free  and  amazing 
grace.  Being  the  actual  execution  in  strict  rigor  of  justice  of 
the  unrelaxed  penalty  of  the  law  in  the  person  of  the  God-man, 
it  is  the  most  impressive  exhibition  to  the  moral  universe  con¬ 
ceivable  of  God’s  inexorable  determination  to  punish  all  sin. 

11  The  word  1  satisfaction  ’  is  neither  ambiguous  nor  defective. 
The  Reformed  Churches  mean  by  its  use  that  Christ  fully  satis¬ 
fied  all  that  the  justice  and  law  of  God  required  on  the  part  of 
mankind  as  the  condition  of  their  being  admitted  to  divine 
favor  and  eternal  happiness.  As  the  demands  of  the  law  upon 
sinful  men  are  both  preceptive  and  penal — the  condition  of  life 
being  ‘  do  this  and  live,’  while  the  penalty  denounced  upon  dis¬ 
obedience  is,  1  the  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die  ’ — it  follows  that 

any  work  which  shall  fully  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  divine 
6 


Punishment. 


291 


law  in  behalf  of  men  must  include  that  obedience  which  the  law 
demands  as  the  condition  of  life,  and  that  suffering  which  it  de¬ 
mands  as  the  penalty  of  sin. 

“  The  difference  between  a  penal  and  a  pecuniary  satisfaction. 
These  differ  precisely  as  do  crime  and  debt,  things  and  persons, 
and  therefore  the  distinction  is  both  obvious  and  important. 
Many,  who  either  are  incapable  of  understanding  the  question, 
are  ignorant  of  its  history,  or  who  are  unscrupulous  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  they  conduct  controversy,  are  continually 
charging  our  doctrine  with  the  folly  of  representing  the  sacri¬ 
fice  of  Christ  as  a  purely  commercial  transaction,  in  which  so 
much  was  given  for  so  much,  and  in  which  God  was  in  such  a 
sense  recompensed  for  his  favors  to  us  that,  however  much  grat¬ 
itude  we  may  owe  to  Christ,  we  owe  on  this  behalf  none  to  God. 
Long  ago  the  doctrine  of  the  Reformed  Churches  was  unanswer¬ 
ably  vindicated  from  such  puerile  charges  by  all  its  most  au¬ 
thoritative  expounders.  1  Here  the  twofold  solution,  concern¬ 
ing  which  jurists  treat,  should  be  accurately  distinguished.  The 
one  which  ipso  facto  liberates  the  debtor  or  criminal  because 
that  very  thing  which  was  owed  is  paid,  whether  it  was  done  by 
the  debtor  or  by  another  in  his  name.  The  other,  which  ipso 
facto  does  not  liberate,  since  not  at  all  the  very  thing  which  was 
owed,  but  an  equivalent,  is  paid,  which,  although  it  does  not 
thoroughly  and  ipso  facto  discharge  the  obligation,  yet  having 
been  accepted — since  it  might  have  been  refused- — is  regarded 
as  a  satisfaction.  This  distinction  holds  between  a  pecuniary 
and  a  penal  indebtedness.  For  in  a  pecuniary  debt  the  payment 
of  the  thing  owed  ipso  facto  liberates  the  debtor  from  all  obli¬ 
gations  whatsoever,  because  here  the  point  is  not  who  pays ,  but 
what  is  paid.  Hence  the  creditor,  the  payment  being  accepted, 
is  never  said  to  extend  toward  the  debtor  any  indulgence  or  re¬ 
mission,  because  he  has  received  all  that  was  owed  him.  But 
the  case  is  different  with  respect  to  a  penal  debt,  because  in 


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this  case  the  obligation  respects  the  person  as  well  as  the  thing ; 
the  demand  is  upon  th q  person  who  pays  as  well  as  the  thing 
paid ;  that  is,  that  the  penalty  should  be  suffered  by  the  person 
sinning ;  for  as  the  law  demands  personal  and  proper  obedience, 
so  it  exacts  personal  enduring  of  the  penalty.  Therefore,  in  order 
that  a  criminal  should  be  absolved — a  vicarious  satisfaction  be¬ 
ing  rendered  by  another  hand — it  is  necessary  that  there  should 
intervene  a  sovereign  act  of  the  supreme  lawgiver,  which,  with 
respect  to  the  law,  is  called  relaxation,  and  with  respect  to  the 
debtor  is  called  remission,  because  the  personal  endurance  of 
the  penalty  is  remitted,  and  a  vicarious  endurance  of  it  is  ac¬ 
cepted  in  its  stead.  Hence  it  clearly  appears  that  in  this  work 
[of  redemption]  remission  and  satisfaction  are  perfectly  consist¬ 
ent  with  each  other,  because  there  is  satisfaction  in  the  endur¬ 
ance  of  the  punishment  which  Christ  bore,  and  there  is  remission 
in  the  acceptance  of  a  vicarious  victim.  The  satisfaction  respects 
Christ,  from  whom  God  demanded  the  very  same  punishment, 
as  to  kind  of  punishment,  though  not  as  to  the  degree  nor  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  sufferings  which  the  law  denounced  upon 
us.  The  remission  respects  believers,  to  whom  God  remits  the 
personal,  while  he  admits  the  vicarious,  punishment.  And 
thus  appears  the  admirable  reconciliation  of  justice  and  mercy 
— justice  which  executes  itself  upon  the  sin,  and  mercy  which  is 
exercised  toward  the  sinner.  Satisfaction  is  rendered  to  the 
justice  of  God  by  the  sponsor,  and  remission  is  granted  to  us  by 
God.’  * 

“  Hence,  pecuniary  satisfaction  differs  from  penal,  thus :  (a) 
In  debt,  the  demand  terminates  upon  the  thing  due.  In  crime, 
the  legal  demand  for  punishment  is  upon  the  person  of  the 
criminal,  (b)  In  debt,  the  demand  is  for  the  precise  thing  due — 
the  exact  quid  pro  quo ,  and  nothing  else.  In  crime,  the  demand 
is  for  that  kind,  degree,  and  duration  of  suffering  which  the 

*  Turretin,  locus  xiv,  qugestio  10,  §. 


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293 


law — that  is,  absolute  and  omniscient  justice— demands  in  each 
specific  case,  the  person  suffering  and  the  sin  to  be  expiated 
both  being  considered,  (c)  In  debt,  the  payment  of  the  thing 
due,  by  whomsoever  it  may  be  made,  ipso  facto  liberates  the 
debtor,  and  instantly  extinguishes  all  the  claims  of  the  creditor, 
and  his  release  of  the  debtor  is  no  matter  of  grace.  In  crime, 
a  vicarious  suffering  of  the  penalty  is  admissible  only  at  the  ab¬ 
solute  discretion  of  the  sovereign ;  remission  is  a  matter  of 
grace ;  the  rights  acquired  by  the  vicarious  endurance  of  pen¬ 
alty  all  accrue  to  the  sponsor ;  and  the  claims  of  law  upon  the 
sinner  are  not  ipso  facto  dissolved  by  such  a  satisfaction,  but  re¬ 
mission  accrues  to  the  designed  beneficiaries  only  at  such  times 
and  on  such  conditions  as  have  been  determined  by  the  will  of 
the  sovereign  or  agreed  upon  between  the  sovereign  and  the 
sponsor. 

“  The  significance  of  the  term  penalty ,  and  the  distinction  between 
calamities,  chastisements,  and  penal  evils.  Calamities  are  suffer¬ 
ings  viewed  without  reference  to  any  design  or  purpose  in  their 
infliction,  that  is,  suffering  considered  simply  as  suffering.  Chas¬ 
tisements  are  sufferings  viewed  as  designed  for  the  improvement 
of  those  who  experience  them.  When  viewed  as  designed  to 
satisfy  the  claims  of  justice  and  law  they  are  penal  evils.  The 
sufferings  of  Christ  were  not  mere  objectless,  characterless  ca¬ 
lamities.  They  could  not  have  been  chastisements  designed  for 
his  personal  improvement.  They  must  therefore  have  been 
penal  inflictions  vicariously  endured.* 

“  Penalty  is  suffering  exacted  by  the  supreme  lawmaking 
power  of  the  breakers  of  law.  The  penalty  in  case  of  any  per¬ 
son  and  in  view  of  any  crime  is  precisely  that  kind,  degree,  and 
duration  of  suffering  which  the  supreme  lawmaking  power  de¬ 
mands  of  that  person  under  those  conditions  for  that  crime.  Hu¬ 
man  law  is  necessarily  generalized  in  an  average  adaptation  to 

*  Dr.  Charles  Hodge. 


6 


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classes.  But  divine  law,  with  infinite  accuracy,  adapts  itself  to 
the  absolute  rights  of  each  individual  case  of  crime  and  punish¬ 
ment,  the  penalty  in  each  case  fulfilling  all  righteousness,  both 
as  respects  the  person  punished  and  the  crime  for  which  it  is 
inflicted.  We  say  that  Christ  suffered  the  very  penalty  of  the 
law,  not  because  he  suffered  in  the  least  the  same  kind,  much 
less  the  same  degree  of  suffering  as  was  penally  due  those  for 
whom  he  acted,  because  that  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  the  idea 
of  penalty.  But  we  say  that  he  suffered  the  very  penalty  of 
the  law,  because  he  suffered  in  our  stead ;  our  sins  were  pun¬ 
ished  in  strict  rigor  of  justice  in  him  ;  the  penal  demands  of  the 
law  upon  his  people  were  extinguished,  because  his  sufferings 
sustained  precisely  the  same  legal  relations  that  our  sufferings 
in  person  would  have  done ;  and  because  he  suffered  precisely 
that  kind,  degree,  and  duration  of  suffering  that  absolute  justice 
demanded  of  his  divine  person,  when  found  federally  responsi¬ 
ble  for  the  guilt  of  all  the  sins  of  the  elect.  We  believe  that 
while  the  sufferer  is  substituted  the  penalty,  as  penalty ,  though 
never  as  suffering,  is  identical.  We  are  willing  to  call  it  in 
accommodation  a  1  substituted  penalty,’  though  we  believe  the 
phrase  inaccurate.  But  the  phrase  insisted  upon  by  the  advo¬ 
cates  of  the  governmental  atonement  theory,  namely,  ‘a  sub¬ 
stitute  for  a  penalty,’  we  believe  to  be  absurd.  Sin  is  either 
punished  or  not  punished.  The  penalty  is  either  executed  or 
remitted.  Justice  is  either  exercised  or  relaxed.  There  can 
be  no  manifestation  of  penal  righteousness  without  an  exercise 
of  penal  justice. 

“  The  meaning  of  the  words  substitution  and  vicarious.  These 

terms  are  admitted  in  a  loose  sense  even  by  Socinians,  and  are 

paraded  by  Young,  Maurice,  and  Jowett,  and  very  much  in  the 

same  loose,  indifferent  sense  by  Barnes  and  the  advocates  of  the 

governmental  atonement  theory  generally.  When  these  parties 

say  that  Christ  was  substituted  for  us,  and  his  sufferings  are 
6 


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295 


vicarious,  they  mean  nothing  more  than  that  he  suffered  in  our 
behalf  for  our  benefit.  W e  hold,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Christ 
was  in  a  strict  and  exact  sense  the  substitute  of  his  people ;  that 
is,  by  divine  appointment  and  of  his  own  free  will  he  assumed  all 
our  legal  responsibilities  and  thus  assumed  our  law  place,  bind¬ 
ing  himself  to  do  in  our  stead  all  that  the  law  demanded  of  him 
when  he  suffered  the  penalty  due  us  and  rendered  the  obedi¬ 
ence  upon  which  our  well-being  was  made  to  depend.  Vicari¬ 
ous  sufferings  and  obedience  are  penal  inflictions,  and  acts  of 
obedience  to  law  which  are  rendered  in  our  place  or  stead  [vice] 
as  well  as  in  our  behalf  by  our  substitute.  An  alien  goes  to 
the  army  in  the  place  of  a  drafted  subject.  He  is  the  substitute 
of  the  man  in  whose  place  he  goes.  His  labors,  his  dangers,  his 
wounds,  and  his  death  are  vicarious. 

“  The  distinction  between  the  terms  expiation  and  propitiation. 
Both  these  words  represent  the  same  Greek  word,  ikaoKsodai. 
When  construed,  as  it  is  constantly  in  the  classics,  with  rov  Qeov 
or  rovg  Qeovg,  it  means  to  propitiate  by  sacrificial  expiation.  In 
the  Hew  Testament  it  is  construed  with  rag  dfiapriag  (Heb.  ii,  17), 
and  is  properly  translated  to  expiate.  Expiation  removes  the 
reatus  or  guilt  of  sin.  Reatus  is  that  obligation  to  suffer  the 
penalty  which  is  inherent  in  sin.  Sanctification  alone  removes 
the  pollution  of  sin.  Propitiation  removes  the  judicial  displeas¬ 
ure  of  God.  Expiation  respects  the  bearing  or  effect  which 
satisfaction  has  upon  sin  or  upon  the  sinner.  Propitiation  has 
respect  to  the  bearing  or  effect  which  satisfaction  has  upon 
God.  Sacrificial  expiation  among  heathens,  Jews,  and  Chris¬ 
tians  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  tru q  poena  vicaria  ;  it  is  of 
the  genus  penalty  ;  its  specific  difference  is  vicariousness.  Pro¬ 
pitiation,  as  a  theological  term,  means  that  peculiar  method  of 
rendering  placable  which  affects  the  heart  of  a  Deity,  who  at 
the  same  time  hates  the  sin  and  is  determined  to  punish  it,  yet 
loves  the  sinner  ;  and  which  proceeds  by  means  of  expiation, 


296 


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or  the  vicarious  suffering  of  the  penalty  by  a  substituted 
victim. 

u  Impetration  and  Application.  Arminians  and  the  Calvinistic 
advocates  of  a  general  atonement  are  constantly  insisting  upon 
the  distinction  between  the  impetration  and  the  application  of 
salvation  by  Christ.  By  impetration  they  mean  the  purchase, 
or  meritorious  procurement  by  sacrifice,  of  all  of  those  objec¬ 
tive  conditions  of  salvation  which  are  offered  to  all  men  in  the 
Gospel ;  that  is,  salvation  made  available  on  the  condition  of 
faith.  By  application  they  mean  the  actual  application  of  that 
salvation  to  individuals  upon  faith.  The  impetration  they  hold 
to  be  general  and  indefinite ;  the  application  they  believe  to  be 
personal,  definite,  and  limited  to  believers.  The  Reformed 
Churches,  on  the  other  hand,  teach  that  while  the  impetration 
of  salvation  is  both  logically  and  chronologically  distinguish¬ 
able  from  its  application,  nevertheless  in  the  eternal  and  im¬ 
mutable  design  of  God  the  impetration  is  personal  and  definite, 
and  includes  certainly  and  meritoriously  the  subsequent  appli¬ 
cation  to  the  persons  intended  ;  for  ‘  to  all  for  whom  Christ  hath 
purchased  redemption  he  doth  certainly  and  effectually  apply  and 
communicate  the  same .’ 

u  Redemption  and  Atonement  The  modem  advocates  of  a 
general  atonement  distinguish  between  the  words  redemption 
and  atonement  after  this  manner :  Atonement  they  confine  to 
the  impetration  of  the  objective  conditions  of  salvation,  which 
they  maintain  is  general  and  indefinite.  Redemption  they  use 
in  a  wider  sense  as  including  the  actual  personal  application  in 
addition  to  the  general  and  all-sufficient  impetration.  Hence, 
while  they  speak  of  a  general  atonement,  they  deny,  of  course, 
that  there  is  a  general  redemption.  It  must  be  carefully  noted, 
however,  that  this  distinction  was  not  marked  by  this  usage  of 
the  terms  atonement  and  redemption  by  any  of  the  controver¬ 
sialists  on  either  side  of  the  question  during  the  seventeenth  cen- 
6 


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tury,  when  the  authoritative  standards  of  the  Reformed  Churches 
were  written.  Baxter  used  the  word  redemption  as  equivalent 
to  atonement  in  his  work  entitled  Universal  Redemption  of 
Mankind  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  So  also  the  Arminian  Dr. 
Isaac  Barrow,  in  his  sermons  entitled  £  The  Doctrine  of  Uni¬ 
versal  Redemption  Asserted  and  Explained .’  In  the  West¬ 
minster  Confession,  let  it  be  remembered,  the  word  redemption 
is  used  in  the  sense  of  atonement,  or  the  sacrificial  purchase  of 
salvation  for  those  for  whom  it  was  intended.* 

“  There  is,  however,  unquestionably  a  distinction  to  be  care¬ 
fully  observed  between  these  words  in  their  biblical  usage. 

“  The  precise  biblical  sense  of  atonement  (D'HBS — Uaa\iof)  is 
the  expiation  of  sin  by  means  of  a  poena  vicaria  in  order  to 
the  propitiation  of  God.  The  biblical  usage  with  respect  to 
redemption  (anohvTpcooic;,  etc.),  is  more  comprehensive  and  less 
definite.  It  signifies  deliverance  from  loss  or  from  ruin  by  the 
payment  for  us  of  a  ransom  by  our  Substitute.  Hence  it  may 
signify  the  act  of  our  Substitute  in  paying  that  ransom.  Or  it 
may  be  used  to  express  the  completed  deliverance  itself,  the 
consummation  of  which  is,  of  course,  future.  To  say  that 
‘  Christ  has  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made 
a  curse  for  us  ’  (Gal.  iii,  13),  is  precisely  equivalent  to  saying 
that  he  has  made  atonement  for  us.  But  when  we  speak  of 
our  £  redemption  drawing  nigh  ’  (Luke  xxi,  28),  of  1  the  redemp¬ 
tion  of  the  purchased  possession  ’  (Eph.  i,  14),  of  £  the  re¬ 
demption  of  our  body  ’  (Rom.  viii,  23),  or  of  £  the  day  of  re¬ 
demption  ’  (Eph.  iv,  30),  it  is  plain  that  the  word  signifies  the 
deliverance  of  our  souls  and  bodies,  and  the  attainment  for  us 
of  a  heavenly  inheritance  by  means  of  the  payment  of  a  ransom 
for  us  by  our  Lord — a  deliverance  which,  although  commenced 
now,  will  be  consummated  at  a  future  day.  Redemption  being 

*  See  Dr.  Cunningham’s  Historical  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  p.  327,  and  Dr.  Henry  B. 

Smith,  in  his  edition  of  Hagenbach ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  356. 

20 


6 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


deliverance  by  means  of  the  substitution  of  a  ransom,  it  follows 
that,  although  the  ransom  can  only  be  paid  to  God,  and  to  him 
only  as  the  moral  Governor  of  the  universe,  we  may  still  be  said 
to  be  redeemed  from  all  that  we  are  delivered  from  by  means 
of  the  ransom  paid  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Thus  we  are  said 
to  be  redeemed  from  our  “  vain  conversation  ”  (1  Pet.  i,  18), 
“from  death”  (Hos.  xiii,  14),  “from  the  devil”  (Col.  ii,  15; 
Heb.  ii,  14),  from  “  all  iniquity  ”  (Tit.  ii,  14),  and  “  from  the 
curse  of  the  law  ”  (Gal.  iii,  18,  and  iv,  5),  while  it  is  of  course 
not  meant  that  the  ransom  is  paid  to  the  devil,  or  to  sin,  or  to 
death,  or  to  the  law.  It  is  simply  absurd  to  claim  that  these 
different  representations  are  inconsistent.  A  captive  is  re¬ 
deemed  by  a  i)rice  paid  only  to  him  that  holds  him  in  bondage, 
but  by  the  same  act  may  be  redeemed  from  labor,  from  disease, 
from  death,  from  the  persecution  of  his  fellow-captives,  and 
irom  a  slavish  disposition.* 

Meritum  and  Satis/actio.  Thomas  Aquinas  (1274)  first  signal¬ 
ized  the  distinction  between  the  terms  meritum  and  satisfactio. 
By  satisfactio  he  intended  the  bearing  of  Christ’s  work  consid¬ 
ered  as  penal  suffering,  which  satisfies  the  penal  claims  of  law 
for  the  demerit  of  sin.  By  meritum  he  intended  the  bearing  of 
Christ’s  work  considered  as  a  holy  obedience,  fulfilling  all  the 
conditions  of  the  original  covenant  of  life  upon  which  the 
eternal  well-being  of  his  people  were  suspended.  These  are  in 
modern  times  both  embraced  under  the  one  term  satisfaction 
(which  see  above),  and  the  distinction  intended  by  Aquinas  is 
now  expressed  by  the  terms  active  and  passive  obedience.  The 
whole  earthly  career  of  Christ,  including  his  death,  was  obedi¬ 
ence  in  one  aspect  and  suffering  in  another.  Inasmuch  as  it 
was  suffering,  it  expiated  the  sins  of  his  people ;  inasmuch  as 
it  was  obedience,  it  merited  for  them  the  covenanted  reward  of 
eternal  life. 

*  See  the  closing  paragraph  of  chap,  xii,  Governmental  Theory. 

6 


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299 


What  is  our  doctrine  of  atonement?  The  answer  to  this 
question  is  not  so  simple  or  unperplexed  as  many,  at  first 
thought,  would  suppose.  The  Scripture  terms  of  atonement 
have,  with  all  propriety,  been  in  the  freest  use  with  us.  Nor 
have  we  been  careful  to  shun  the  terminology  of  the  strictest 
doctrine  of  satisfaction.  An  inquiry  for  the  ideas  associated 
with  these  terms  in  the  popular  thought  of  Methodism  respect¬ 
ing  the  nature  of  the  atonement  would  probably  bring  no  very 
definite  answer.  In  view  of  all  the  facts  we  are  constrained  to 
think  that  the  dominant  idea  has  been  that  of  a  real  and  necessary 
atonement  in  Christ,  while  the  idea  of  its  nature  has  been  rather 
indefinite.  We  are  very  sure  that  while  the  popular  faith  of 
Methodism  has  utterly  excluded  the  Socinian  scheme  it  has  not 
been  at  one  with  the  theory  of  satisfaction. 

Our  earlier  written  soteriology  has,  at  least  in  part,  a  like 
indefiniteness.  It  is  always  clear  and  pronounced  on  the  fact 
of  an  atonement,  but  not  always  exact  or  definite  respecting  its 
nature.  This,  however,  should  be  noted,  that  our  written 
soteriology  contains  comparatively  but  little  directly  on  this 
question.  Indeed,  we  have  not  contributed  much  to  the  litera¬ 
ture  of  the  atonement ;  and  most  of  the  little  contributed  has 
been  given  to  the  two  questions  of  reality  and  extent,  while 
only  the  smaller  part  has  been  given  to  the  nature  or  doctrine 
of  the  atonement. 

Mr.  Watson  has  written  more  fully  and  formally  on  the 
atonement  than  any  other  Methodist  author.*  We  recognize 
his  superior  ability  as  a  theologian.  This  ability  is  not  wanting 
in  his  discussion  of  the  atonement.  But  his  strength  is  given 
to  the  questions  of  its  reality  and  extent.  His  discussion  is 
mainly  a  polemics  with  the  Socinian  scheme  and  with  Calvin- 
istic  limitationists.  With  rare  ability  he  maintains  the  fact  of 
an  atonement  against  the  one,  and  its  universality  against  the 

*  Theological  Institutes ,  vol.  ii,  chapters  xix-xxix. 


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others.  But  on  the  question  of  theories  we  cannot  accord  to 
him  any  very  fair  discrimination.  Grotius,  as  it  appears,  was 
his  chief  authority,  and  next  to  him,  Stillingfleet,  who  wrote 
mainly  in  defense  of  Grotius.*  But  Grotius,  while  giving  the 
principles  of  a  new  theory,  did  not,  as  previously  noted,  give  to 
its  construction  scientific  completeness.  He  wrote  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  reformed  doctrine,  but  with  such  new  princi¬ 
ples  as  really  constitute  another  doctrine.  But,  clear  and  deter¬ 
mining  as  his  principles  are,  he  failed  to  give  either  theory  in 
scientific  completeness.  This  is  just  what  Mr.  Watson  has 
failed  to  do.  And  he  is  less  definite  than  Grotius  himself. 

He  rejects  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  in  its  usual  exposition, 
and  requires  for  its  acceptance  such  modifications  as  it  cannot 
admit.  He  interprets  satisfaction  much  in  the  manner  of 
Grotius,  and  hence  in  a  sense  which  the  reformed  doctrine 
must  reject.  And  the  doctrine  which  he  arraigns  and  refutes 
as  the  Antinomian  atonement  is  the  historic  and  current 
Calvinian  doctrine  of  satisfaction,  with  the  formal  rejection 
of  its  Antinomian  sequences.  He  is,  therefore,  not  a  satis¬ 
faction^,  f 

The  principles  of  moral  government  in  which  Mr.  Watson 
grounds  the  necessity  for  an  atonement  mainly  determine  for 
him  the  governmental  theory  4  The  same  is  true  of  his  dis¬ 
cussion  of  the  vinculum  between  the  sufferings  of  Christ  and 
the  forgiveness  of  sin.§  And  when  we  add  his  broader  views 
in  soteriology  as  including  the  universality  of  the  atonement, 
its  strictly  provisory  character,  and  the  real  conditionality  of  its 
saving  grace — views  necessarily  belonging  to  all  consistent 
Arminian  theology,  and  which  Mr.  Watson  so  fully  maintained 
— his  principles  require  for  him  the  governmental  theory  of 
atonement  And  the  more  certainly  is  this  so,  as  it  is  impos- 

*  Works,  vol.  iii,  p.  227.  f  Theological  Institutes ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  138-143. 

|  Ibid.,  pp.  87-102.  §  Ibid.,  pp.  143-145. 

6 


Punishment. 


301 


sible  to  construct  any  new  doctrine  of  a  real  atonement  between 
this  and  the  satisfaction  theory. 

So  far  as  we  know  Dr.  Whedon  has  never  given  his  theory 
of  atonement  in  the  style  of  the  governmental ;  yet  it  is  in 
principle  the  same.  In  his  statement  of  the  doctrines  of  Meth¬ 
odism  it  is  given  thus:  “Christ  as  truly  died  as  a  substitute 
for  the  sinner  as  Damon  could  have  died  as  a  substitute  for 
Pythias.  Yet  to  make  the  parallel  complete  Damon  should  so 
die  for  Pythias  as  that,  unless  Pythias  should  accept  the  sub¬ 
stitution  of  Damon  in  all  its  conditions,  he  should  not  receive 
its  benefits,  and  Damon’s  death  should  be  for  him  in  vain; 
Pythias  may  be  as  rightfully  executed  as  if  Damon  had  not 
died.  If  the  sinner  accept  not  the  atonement,  but  deny  the 
Lord  that  bought  him,  Christ  has  died  for  him  in  vain ;  he  per¬ 
ishes  for  whom  Christ  died.  If  the  whole  human  race  were  to 
reject  the  atonement,  the  atonement  would  be  a  demonstration 
of  the  righteousness  and  goodness  of  God,  but  would  be  pro¬ 
ductive  of  aggravation  of  human  guilt  rather  than  of  salvation 
from  it.  The  imputation  of  the  sin  of  man,  or  his  punishment, 
to  Christ,  is  but  a  popular  conception,  justifiable,  if  understood 
as  only  conceptual ;  just  as  we  might  say  that  Damon  was  pun¬ 
ished  instead  of  Pythias.  In  strictness  of  language  and  thought 
neither  crime,  guilt,  nor  punishment  is  personally  transferable.”* 

Anyone  at  all  familiar  with  theories  of  atonement  will  see 
at  a  glance  that  the  principles  contained  in  this  statement  are 
thoroughly  exclusive  of  the  satisfaction  theory,  and  that  they 
have  a  true  scientific  position  only  with  the  rectoral  theory. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  doctrine,  and  with  much  fuller  unfold¬ 
ing,  in  the  sermon  to  which  reference  is  given. 

On  the  theory  of  atonement  we  understand  Dr.  Raymond  to 
be  with  Dr.  'WTiedon,  He  gives  the  atonement  thus:  “The 

*  Bibliotheca  Sacra ,  vol.  xix,  pp.  260,  261.  Dr.  Whedon  gives  the  same  views  in 
his  very  able  sermon  on  “  Substitutional  Atonement.” 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


death  of  Christ  is  not  a  substituted  penalty,  but  a  substitute 
for  a  penalty.  The  necessity  of  an  atonement  is  not  found  in 
the  fact  that  the  justice  of  God  requires  an  invariable  execution 
of  deserved  penalty,  but  in  the  fact  that  the  honor  and  glory 
of  God,  and  the  welfare  of  his  creatures,  require  that  his  essen¬ 
tial  and  rectoral  righteousness  be  adequately  declared.  The 
death  of  Christ  is  exponential  of  divine  justice,  and  is  a  satis¬ 
faction  in  that  sense,  and  not  in  the  sense  that  it  is,  as  of  a 
debt,  the  full  and  complete  payment  of  all  its  demands.”* 

The  principles  given  in  this  passage  exclude  the  satisfaction 
atonement,  and  require  as  their  only  scientific  position  the 
rectoral  theory.  All  this  is  even  more  apparent  when  the 
passage  cited  is  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  further  refer¬ 
ences  given. 

With  this  view  Dr.  Raymond’s  doctrine  of  justification,  as 
that  of  every  consistent  Arminian,  fully  accords.  It  is  not  a 
discharge  of  the  sinner  through  the  merited  punishment  of  his 
sin  in  his  substitute,  but  an  actual  forgiveness,  and  such  as  can 
issue  only  in  the  non  execution  of  penalty,  f 

We  would  not  place  Dr.  Raymond  in  any  false  light,  nor 
identify  him  with  any  theory  which  he  discards.  He  does 
discard  the  theory  which  represents  the  death  of  Christ  simply 
as  a  governmental  display,  and  especially  as  implying  that  this 
is  only  one  of  several  possible  expedients  in  atonement.  While 
fully  maintaining  the  rectoral  office  of  the  atonement  he  re¬ 
gards  the  death  of  Christ  as  also  a  manifestation  of  the  right¬ 
eousness  of  God4  But  these  two  facts  we  think  very  closely, 
indeed  inseparably,  united.  Without  the  manifestation  of  the 
divine  righteousness  the  atonement  in  the  death  of  Christ 
could  not  fulfill  its  rectoral  office.  But  it  is  not  the  govern¬ 
mental  theory,  in  any  true  statement  of  it,  that  is  here  criticised. 

*  Systematic  Theology ,  vol.  ii,  pp.  257,  258.  See  also  pp.  261,  264-268. 

f  Ibid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  258.  $  Ibid .,  vol.  ii,  p.  253. 

6 


Punishment. 


303 


And  on  its  own  principles  the  theory  requires  the  redemptive 
mediation  of  Christ  as  the  only  adequate  atonement. 

The  principles  and  office  of  the  atonement  in  Christ,  as 
maintained  by  Dr.  Bledsoe,  agree  with  the  governmental 
theory.  This  will  be  clear  to  anyone  who  will  read  with 
scientific  discrimination  his  discussion  of  the  question.*  And 
with  Arminians  he  is,  rightfully,  a  representative  author  on 
questions  of  this  kind.  He  had  both  the  learning  and  the 
ability  for  the  discussion  of  Methodist  doctrines.  He  gave  to 
them  profound  study,  and  had  a  deep  insight  into  their  philos¬ 
ophy.  The  same  is  true  respecting  the  atonement.  He  studied 
it  in  the  light  of  the  Scriptures  and  in  its  scientific  relations 
to  other  cardinal  doctrines  of  Wesleyan  Arminianism.  The 
outcome  is  a  doctrine  intrinsically  the  same  as  we  propound, 
though  not  so  styled.  On  the  ground  of  such  a  doctrine  it  is 
easy  to  answer  the  Socinian  objections  arrayed  against  the  fact 
of  an  atonement  in  the  death  of  Christ;  objections  which  the 
theory  of  satisfaction  never  has  answered,  and  never  can. 

The  soteriology  of  Wesleyan  Arminianism,  taken  as  a 
whole,  excludes  the  satisfaction  theory,  and  requires  the  gov¬ 
ernmental  as  the  only  theory  consistent  with  its  doctrines. 
The  doctrines  of  soteriology,  with  the  atonement  included, 
must  admit  of  systemization,  and  be  in  scientific  accord.  If 
not,  there  is  error  at  some  point,  as  no  truth  can  be  in  discord 
with  any  other  truth. f  How  certain  cardinal  doctrines  of  the 
Wesleyan  soteriology  are  very  conspicuous  and  entirely  settled. 
One  is,  that  the  atonement  is  only  provisory  in  its  character; 
that  it  renders  men  salvable,  but  does  not  necessarily  save  them. 
Another,  and  the  consequence  of  the  former,  is  the  condition - 
alitv  of  salvation.  Hor  is  this  such  as  Calvinism  often  asserts, 

kJ 

yet  holds  with  the  monergism  of  the  system,  but  a  real  condi¬ 
tionality  in  accord  with  the  synergism  of  the  truest  Arminianism. 

*  Theodicy ,  pp.  276-293.  f  Governmental  Theory ,  chap,  i,  10. 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


On  these  facts  there  is  neither  hesitation  nor  divergence  in 
Methodism.  With  these  facts,  the  atonement  of  satisfaction 
must  be  excluded  from  her  svstem  of  doctrines,  and  the  recto- 
ral  theory  maintained  as  the  only  doctrine  of  a  real  atonement 
agreeing  with  them. 

Such  has  really  been  the  position  of  Arminianism  from  the 
beginning,  though  without  exact  or  definite  statement.  It 
never  occupied  the  position  of  Lutheranism  in  maintaining  a 
doctrine  of  atonement  which,  with  its  universality,  must  save 
all  men,  and  which  is  disproved  by  the  fact  that  many  are  not 
saved.  While  the  early  Arminians  never  formally  constructed 
a  doctrine  of  atonement  in  scientific  accord  with  their  system, 
yet  from  the  beginning  they  denied  the  leading  facts  of  the 
reformed  soteriology  so  vitally  connected  with  the  atonement 
of  satisfaction.  Thus  they  denied  its  limitation  to  an  elect 
part,  that  it  is  necessarily  saving,  that  it  includes  its  own  appli¬ 
cation,  that  saving  faith  is  a  resistless  product  of  its  sovereign 
grace,  that  the  application  is  in  the  full  extent  of  the  redemp¬ 
tion.*  Indeed,  these  questions  were  the  chief  issue  in  the 
great  polemics  between  the  Arminians  and  the  Calvinists. 
Hence  the  former  could  not  consistently  hold  the  doctrine 
maintained  by  the  latter. 

But  if  we  object  to  the  idea  that  justice  will  accept  of  noth¬ 
ing  but  punishment — that  the  Infinite  can  in  no  case  pardon — 
much  more  do  we  object  to  substitutional  punishment,  as  dis¬ 
creditable  to  God,  and  impossible  under  a  holy  and  just  ad¬ 
ministration.  What  is  punishment  ?  Is  it  mere  suffering  in¬ 
flicted,  without  respect  to  occasion  or  end?  Certainly  not 
Just  punishment,  and  it  is  of  that  alone  that  we  speak,  is  suf¬ 
fering  inflicted  upon  a  culprit  for  the  willful  violation  of  a 

*  Dr.  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom ,  vol.  i,  pp.  516-518  ;  Frederick  Calder, 
Memoirs  of  Episcopius,  p.  474 ;  Professor  Smeaton,  Apostles ’  Doctrine  of  Atone - 
ment,  pp.  537,  538. 


Punishment. 


305 


law  which,  he  was  obliged  of  right  to  obey.  It  has  four  in¬ 
variable  and  essential  conditions:  First,  that  the  law  trans¬ 
gressed  be  a  righteous  law ;  that  is,  that  it  be  not  oppressive  and 
that  it  enforce  rights ;  second,  that  it  has  been  knowingly  and 
freely  transgressed  ;  third,  that  the  party  inflicting  the  punish¬ 
ment  has  the  right  obligation  to  inflict  it ;  fourth  and  finally, 
that  it  be  inflicted  on  the  guilty.  Any  one  of  these  wanting 
there  may  be  suffering,  but  there  cannot  be  just  punishment. 
An  innocent  person  may  come  into  suffering  either  voluntarily, 
as  a  consequence  of  the  guilty  act  of  another,  or  voluntarily 
in  the  behalf  of  one  who  has  committed  crime.  The  innocent 
cannot  be  punished  by  justice.  The  proposition  that  the  in¬ 
nocent  may  be  justly  punished  contains  as  absolute  a  contra¬ 
diction  as  can  be  uttered  in  language.  It  is  impossible  to 
think  of  just  punishment  without  crime ;  and  it  is  impossible 
to  think  of  its  being  exerted  upon  any  other  than  the  culprit, 
but  most  impossible  of  all  to  think  of  going  away  from  the 
culprit  to  find  content  in  the  infliction  of  its  deadly  blow 
upon  the  most  exalted  worth  or  most  immaculate  holiness  in 
the  universe.  The  case  is  not  changed  by  alleging  that  it  is 
a  device  of  love — that  justice  punishes  the  one  innocent  for 
the  sake  of  the  many  guilty.  Both  the  love  and  the  justice 
become  stained  with  foulest  injustice.  Not  such  is  either  the 
love  or  justice  of  God.  Those  ineffable  attributes,  alike  the 
glory  of  the  divine  nature,  and  alike  and  forever  the  terror  of 
all  sin,  and  the  palladium  of  all  innocence,  were  never  more 
vilely  slandered  than  in  the  vain  dream  of  substitutional  pun¬ 
ishment. 

But  it  is  said  the  supposition  is  not  that  punishment  was 
inflicted  on  the  innocent.  The  substitute  was  punished  be¬ 
cause,  in  taking  the  law  place  of  the  guilty,  he  became  guilty. 
Some  have  been  bold  enough  to  assert  that  Christ  was  guilty 
of  all  the  sins  of  the  whole  world;  others  have  been  more 


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Studies  in  Theology. 


sparing,  and  have  only  indicted  him  for  all  the  sins  of  the  elect. 
What  does  this  mean?  The  divine  declaration  is  positive, 
that  “  in  him  was  no  sin ;  ”  that  “  He  was  the  brightness  of  the 
Father’s  glory,  and  the  express  image  of  his  person ;  ”  that  in 
heaven  he  is  hailed  and  worshiped  as  the  thrice  holy ;  that 
“he,  the  just,  died  for  the  unjust.”  But  it  is  said  that  he 
consented  to  be  accounted  a  sinner,  and  that  God  did  so  ac¬ 
count  him ;  but  if  in  fact  he  was  not  a  sinner  on  what  princi¬ 
ple  could  he  so  account  himself  ?  How  could  God  so  account 
him?  Will  he,  the  perfectly  true  and  just,  falsely  accuse 
himself?  Will  the  Father  falsely  accuse  him?  Either  sup¬ 
position  is  to  impute  a  sinful  artifice  to  the  Godhead,  and  so  to 
rob  the  whole  Deity  of  the  attribute  of  holiness.  Either  he  is 
a  sinner  or  he  is  not.  The  Scriptures  are  plain,  that  he  did  no 
sin — that  he  was  the  spotless  lamb.  To  assume  that  he  was 
when  God  declares  he  was  not  is  to  make  God  a  liar.  To  say 
that  God  accuses  him  is  to  put  God  at  war  with  himself.  It 
will  not  relieve  the  case  to  say  that  his  sin  was  not  his  own, 
for  it  is  a  contradiction  to  say  it  was  his  sin,  but  not  his  own 
sin.  It  is  no  relief  to  say  that  it  was  so  his  sin,  that  he  was 
treated  as  if  it  had  been  his  own  sin,  for  this  is  but  another 
way  of  saying  that  infinite  justice  can  treat  an  innocent  per¬ 
son  just  as  if  he  was  guilty;  that  is  that  infinite  justice 
might  be  infinite  injustice  at  the  same  time  that  it  made  no 
distinction  between  guilt  and  innocence.  Human  language  is 
incapable  of  a  grosser  absurdity. 

There  is  but  one  way  by  which  any  being  can  be  justly 
accused  of  sin,  and  justly  punished  for  sin,  and  that  only  way 
is  by  sinning.  To  suppose  that  Christ  in  some  way  made 
human  sin  his  sin  necessitates  that  he  accepted  it,  and  thus 
made  it,  de  facto ,  his  own;  but  that  supposition  contradicts 
the  declaration  that  “  in  him  was  no  sin,”  and  also  makes 
it  impossible  that  his  punishment  should  be  meritorious, 


Punishment. 


307 


since  it  would  be  punishment  which  he  deserved  for  his 
own  sin. 

But  it  is  said,  after  all,  the  Scriptures  declare  that  he  was 
punished,  and  this  settles  the  question.  This  we  deny,  and 
assert  that  they  uniformly  declare  the  very  opposite.  They 
declare  that  he  was  guiltless,  and  they  declare  that  the  law — 
justice — condemns  only  transgressors:  that,  therefore,  the  law 
could  not  condemn  him.  They  declare  positively  that  in  him 
the  F ather  was  always  well  pleased ;  that  when  suff ering  his 
greatest  agonies  it  was  not  because  of  displeasure  against  him 
that  the  Father  loved  him.  We  will  go  further,  and  say  that 
not  only  were  his  sufferings  not  because  of  any  displeasure  of 
justice  against  him,  but  so  neither  were  they  because  of  the 
displeasure  of  God  against  any  transgressor  or  class  of  trans¬ 
gressors  ;  they  do  not  express  displeasure.  They  were  suffer¬ 
ings  of  love  and  pity  incurred,  not  as  penal,  but  voluntarily 
accepted  from  simple  inspiration  of  love. 

But  these  are  not  the  only  grounds  for  rejecting  the  idea 
of  substitutional  punishment  as  a  delusion  and  a  snare;  it  must 
be  rejected  as  wholly  inadmissible  and  false  on  other  grounds 
as  well ;  on  the  general  ground  that  it  leads  to  a  totally  incor¬ 
rect  view  of  the  nature  and  design  of  the  atonement,  and  all 
the  doctrines  cognate  thereto. 

Is  it  not  the  all-pervading  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures 
that  the  atonement  does  not  deliver  us  from  exposedness  to 
punishment  for  our  sins ;  that,  notwithstanding  it  has  been 
made,  we  are  still  liable,  and  in  case  we  do  not  repent  will 
actually  suffer  the  penalty  ?  But  how  can  this  be  if  the  pen¬ 
alty  has  already  been  endured?  Will  justice  demand  the  for¬ 
feit  the  second  time — have  its  pound  of  flesh  of  the  surety  and 
debtor  both  ?  The  limited  atonementist  may  and  does  answer 
that  all  those  on  behalf  of  whom  it  was  offered  will  infallibly 
be  saved,  and  the  Universalist  may  consistently  make  the  same 


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Studies  m  Theology. 


answer  as  of  the  whole,  but  how  shall  we  escape?  We  hold 
that  those  on  behalf  of  whom  the  atonement  was  offered 
may  perish ;  that  some  of  them  certainly  will.  If  the  punish¬ 
ment  was  visited  on  the  surety,  how  can  we  explain  the  sec¬ 
ond  visitation  ?  Either  the  first  met  the  demand  or  it  did  not 
If  it  did  justice  can  neither  ask  nor  receive  the  second  indem¬ 
nity.  There  can  be  no  escape  from  this.  It  will  not  answer 
to  reply  that  it  was  conditional  A  penal  atonement  cannot 
be  conditional. 


Date  Due 


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